
Class JD.^„a^- 
Book.. ._a 

CDEXRIGHT DEPOSm 



Blue Eye to Berlin 



BY UNCLE BLAIR 



Ben McCann "On Root" 



THE AVIATOR 

It was June 
In Saskatoon — - 

June in London, 
June in the Moon. 

It was noon 
At Saskatoon — 
Noon at Gunnison, 
Dusk at Verdun.* 

Over the wheat-field billows . 

Loiter light clouds at noon. 
Drifting beneath in their shadowJi, 

Dream I of far Verdun. 

My body lies in Dead Man's Hill, 
And my soul is at Saskatoon, 

TWO PARODIES 

Here I raise my Ebenezer — 
Susan Jane and Adoniram; 
EmMy, Ann, Joab and Joseph, 
Jejoshaphat and Joshuway — 
Ttach them all to chaw tobacco. 
Teach them to make apple cider, 
Catch raccoons and patch the harne»« 

Were I reyal Antiquary 

To the Bank of Timbuctoo, 

I would paint its Dromedary, 

Paint the sacred Dromedary, 

From dusty dun to dim book blue, 

I surely should make him look new. 

^Please pronounce Vairdoon, 



Blue Eye to Berlin 

AmaEtttg War SercrJ /^7; 

OF CHEVALIER McCANN 

A Twentieth Century Marco Polo 
Traveler and Strategist 

Fiction Marvelous Almost as Pact 



Edited by Uncle Blaij 



©aklmtb, CHaL 

rii BUSHED BY THR Al rfK.>K 
J.E.WHINNERY 

1920 
All rights resfrc'd 



U52t 



W4-? 



Copyright 1920 by James Everhart Whinncry 
"Uncle Blair" 

Published January. 1920 

Printed in the United States of Amerioi 

All Rights Reserved 



M 14 1920 

©CI.A550680 



PREFACE 

The aim, intent, purpose of tin's book is to 
amuse and instiuct, to be taken, in t^e main, 
as a friendly salife on the Decline, Fall, and 
Picking Up Again of the War Correspondent, 

On the last pa^e the Mar-Casey (Marchese 
di Mirandola) calls McCann chevalier. What 
Grand Duchess gave him the title we know not. 

In the American Civil War Charles A. Dana 
held the Government steady in support of the 
Vicksiburg campaign. Whitelaw Reid's story 
of Shiloh overbore that of the Commanding 
General. Albert D. Richardson, Henry Villard, 
George W. Smalley, with others of the press, 
made the struggle near and real to the men 
and women at home, ^^Bull Run" Russell's 
taunts spttrred the North to her stride. Meade 
insisted on a Correspondent being drummed 
out of camp— and allowed him to return quiet- 
ly. The War Correspondent reached his high- 
est estate when Archibald Forbes was invited 
to headquarters by Altxand^r III, praised and 
consulted. In the war of 1914-19 the Military 
conceded to the War Correspondents scant rec- 
ognition.. Many came home discruraged. A few 



PREFACE 

'able men found recompense in the approving 
confidence of American readers. 

When one's characters use a dialect outland 
ish and grotesque, the author or editor is often 
tempted, compelled sometimes, to collaborate. 
In this book, in a few instances, the language 
used drifts from Hero to Author, and back, 
without explanation, without puizling a reader. 

**Bein ezhow"is Ben McCann^s countersign. 
In the days when Allan Thorndike Rice or 
Lloyd Bryce edited the North American Review 
that Review came in so-called exchange to the 
author's newspaper office, as did also Scientific 
American. One day a yonng gentleman called 
and asked to see a copy of the North American. 
We had taken the Review home, per custom, so 
gave him a note asking the Lady-in-Charge to 
get him a copy. He saw it contained no draw- 
ings, and said, doubtfully: 

*'I don't believe this is it, but bein' ez how 
Tve come, Til take it along." 

(It was the Scientific American he wanted.) 
Our vocabulary having no crisp translator of 
Spanish asi como, we adopted bein' ez how. 

Gen. Sherman's Memoirs are the only books 
we know, by a military man, that contain no 
maps. Sherman mentions official maps soon to 
appear, to supply this want. He naively adds 
that they will reduce the cost of his Memoirs. 
In our book no place is mentioned that is not 



PREFACE 

in any one cf several good Atlases, and it is 
more convenient to use a separate book of Maps 
than to turn back ihe pages of this volume. 

Once we ventured to amend a writer who 
credited Gen. Sherman's brother, Senator John, 
with the phrase **The way to resume is to re- 
sume,'* which belonged to Horace Greeley, in 
1868, ten years before Sherman and our great 
financiers had 6nished piling: up gold and silver 
which were not needed, to prepare tor Payment 
in Specie. As Horace foresaw, as soon as we 
began paying out gold, the balance of trade *d 
do the rest. If Europe had to have our food- 
stuffs, she'd send her gold, if there were no 
profit dickering for cheaper paper. Our history 
in 1914-19 makes '78 statesmen a lit tie absurd. 

Statement of Federal reserve circulation, on 
page 214, is for all U.S.A. Dec. I3,'i9, the total 
had increased to $2,907,000000; Dec. 2c, 1919, 
$2,988,000,000; Dec. 27, $3,057,646,000, an im- 
mense paper circulation, of which every dollar 
is interchaH^eable with gold on demand. Dec. 
20, ^iS, $2,663,701,000. On Dec. 27, i9^9? loans 
of New Vork banks had increased to $5,005,- 
i52,ooo;,check and time deposits, $4, 158,142,000. 

The rule of fiction is, not "Did it happen ? *' 
but '• Might it have happened ? *' Chevalier 
McCann's personal adventures arc imaginary: 
when he drops into history he is fairly accurate. 
On p. 174 King Albert's uncle Leopold is mis- 
called his father. Victor Immanu«l III is called 
II, Victor Immanuel I. was King of Sardinia 



PREFACE 

only. Second was First of United Italy. 

The autkor is not sure that the system of 
numbering regiments used in the 1917-19 was 
adopted at the President's suggestion, as seems 
to be implied on the last page. Perhaps it was 
to permit veterans of former wars to stand forth 
more distinctly. 

Last Sunday (Dec. 28, 1919) Mr. Wilson at- 
tained the age ot 63. Many more birthdays, Mr 
President. It is not the fault of the most em- 
inent writer, of all our Pre'^idents, that in his 
Administration Author and Publisher have 
been comparatively least prosperous. 
' For twenty years we had assumed Wilson's, 
voice is high: To hear it, in 1919, low and rather 
heavy, shocked us as when we saw Lamar.: *'Cau 
that raw-boned, coarse-haired giant be the orator 
of the most beautiful tribute to Charles Sumner? 

Several writers have dated the sudden rise in 
the cost of Food from 1914. It began in Fall of 
1916, coincident with the Squeeze. In Spring 
and Summer of 1916 food was cheaper than in 
any of four preceding years. On July 20, 1916, 
Uncle Blair (the author) bmght 49 lbs of good 
Walla Walla flour for $1.25 cheapest we ever. 
Uncle Blair's eostof food for Deamber, I9i9,was 
$7.68: Nov. $7.29; Oct, $765; Nov., '17, $4-S4 
Nov. t6, $4.90; Nov., 15, $3.90. Monthly Av'ge, 
1915, $4.48; I9i6,$4 36; first ten mo. '16, $4,^7; 
first 6 mo. of '14, $5-20^; 19^^, $6.32; 1919, 
$6.84^; 1913,15.61. No milk or butter iised; no 
eggs since May, '17. In '13 not watchful. 

Exports tabulated p. 217, are all from U.S.A. 



On-Redeemed Italy 

Blue Eye (Mo.) correspondence of the States- 
Democrat, Oct. 19, 1915: 

'*Ben McCann, who conducted the horseshoe- 
ing and repair shop on the Arkansas line road, 
1871-92, is in town. At the suggestion, of a ti- 
tled friend, as an expert in Missouri horses, he 
has been appointed a non-combatant inspector 
and is en route for Italy. At the age of twelve, 
Ben was present at the battle of Pea Ridge." 
Borgo-on-the-Brenta/Nov. 19, 1915. 

Nobody calls it that, but I votes for the 
west-of-the-mountains style, like Chalons-sur- 
Marne, Waeht-am-Rhein, und so weider; here 
in Tyrol they say Voels-near-Innsbruck, Voels- 
near-Botzen. I 'How it's easier to find a town 
by follcrin' up an' down a river than to find 
some other town, an' figger from theh wheh ye 
gwine to. This kentry hez dooplicate names 
ez thick ez France — or worser yit, mo' towns 
than they hez names to go roun':(countin' this 
here Borgo [Borgo di Val SuganaJ ez b'longed 
to Ostry till we come) they's four Borgos in 
Italy I knows about — some say they's five — be- 
sides one Borgo in Hungary. The bes' known 



2 FROM BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

Borgo is Borgo di San Marino, on the aidge of 
the tiny independent republic enti'ly sVounded 
by Italy. Taint so independent ez it used to 
be. The Eyetalian consul is on-common like 
the British agent in Egyp'. 

I cal'late "Borgo" means much the same as 
''Burg" in Chermin, or "C. H." in Appomattox 
C. H. On top of all, mos' towns an' rivers an' 
sich hez two names : one Chermin, one Italian. 
[Uncle Blair tried to make me pernounce it Ee~ 
talian, butj Iiperfers to translate furrin names 
into English like French writers translates 
ours — Nouvelle Orleans fur New Orl'anSjEtats 
Unis fur U. S. A.J The Adige an' the Etsch air 
the same identicle river. 

One time Uncle Blair come to me with a map 
of the Battle of Pea Ridge: ''Heah's the Ben- 
tonville road an' the Fayetteville road, and the 
Keetsville road, but I kaint find Keetsville in 
either Arkinsaw or Mizzoory, in any atlas." 
They wor, and is yit, a county seat in middle 
Mizzoory, by the name of Keytesville, bigger'n 
Keetsville, an' lots of folks kaint spell eether 
name. Some of the maps of the battle hez 
Keetsville spelt Keytesville. Even the natives 
after the war didn't allers git it right, so when 
a ex-bushwhacker or bandit or one of the James 
boys writ a 'nonymous letter to a ex-gorilla in 
Keytesville, like ez not it 'd go to Keetsville, or 
viva voce, au' miss makin' the trouble intended 
■ — an' so President Rozyvelt (or mebby it was 



ON-REDEEMED ITALY 3 

Andrew John sing) tells his postmaster general 
to change Keetsville to Ma37flower, a purtier 
name. They kaint do that over here, the towns 
is too old-established, and in the old tiniesTyrol 
folks didn't travel so much, or git many letters. 
A man in Voels then often didn't know they 
was another Voels not sixty mile away. 

Mayflow^er is a few mile west by north from 
Blue Eye — they's only one Blue Eye in United 
States: got its name the same way. 

Trent is Trento in Italian, Trient (tree-aint) 
in Chermin; Botzen hez a alias, Bolzano; Inn- 
chen is San Candido, and so on. 

San Michele is Irish for Mike; they's two of 
him in this postal-zone or war-zone 3'e might 
say. One is over on the Isonzo, close to Gor- 
itzia — it hez a shorter Chermin name, too, one 
syllable (Goertz.) The other is eleven mile 
north of Trent at the change cars for the Val 
di Non (rhyme with loan) and Val di Sole 
(rhyme with holy). So when Franz Josef sees 
them Italians hez took St. Mike he don' know 
whether to be skeert about Trent or Trieste. 



In school at Blue Eye we learned jography 
singin' or chantin', startin' out: 

"State of Maine, Augusty, is on the Kennebec river; 
**♦*»»» 

Oregon, Salem, is on the WiU'ni-mette river " 



4 FROM BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

After I come to the coast I learnt to say Wil- 
lalimet river. One teacher hed us draw maps. 
We made France like a fat teapot, and Italy 
the shape of a boot. The Italians is tryin' 
to smooth off the top of thet boot, with high 
tops. Ostry favors the old military style, sich 
as vi^as called Napoleons, Italy them worn by 
a Hofer or John Bull. Cortina is neerd the 
highest p'int of the boot. Ever sence then, It- 
alia irridenta hez been fussin' to hev thet boot- 
top fixed, but the folks right theh wan't anx- 
ious to fight theh neighbor tooris-busters. 

By the big-road, Borgo is about twenty mile 
inside the Ostrin boundry. Trent is some 
twenty mile furder on, but it seems a lot mo' — 
some them miles is almighty long ones. The 
army is mostly sumwer a-haid. It was a town of 
5,000 or so before we come, and is the capital of 
Yal Sugana. Off to the south the boundry is 
not mo^ *n five or six mile, but they's a pow'ful 
cima or precipice in between, 'bout 7,000 foot 
above the bed of the Brenta. Peggy would say 
is jest grand. This kentry is fuller of scenery 
than any I ever see. In fact the scenery is its 
best fortifications. It's worth $300,000 to h'ist 
a $200,000 gun up some of the steep places 
in the scenery, so they took to sendin em acrost 
from one high mounting to another, by a-eriat 
single-track railway; the Italians is mighty 
cunnin' at new ways and short-cuts; seems like 
ez ef they knock the spots off the Connecticut 
folks and other New Englanders. 



ON-REDEEMED ITALY 5 

The mountings looks jaggeder, mostly, than 
the Olympics from Seattle, and they live up to 
theh looks; but the colorin is mo' like the 5an 
Francisco Fair bildins'; the snow don't come so 
fur down per elevation. 

Cortina, tho sixty mile northeast, by airy- 
plane flyin' high, is neerder the Italian boundry 
than Borgo, owin to the high-front boot-top. 

Irrridenta means on-redeemed Hke the stores 
that sells on-redeemed pledges at phenomenal 
low prices, tho they don't truly shave off the 
price much of solid gold. 

The folks at Cortina and some other p'ints 
is pow'ful sore about this war. Forty year or 
more ago a tooris' who could wear his old cloze 
an' keep his mouth shet could live nice in Cor- 
tina or its sooburbs fur a dollar a week, with, 
ten million dollars' worth of scenery throwed 
in. But a lady come who could write jest 
lovely [Amelia Edwards] — 

"To the Red East-Alpine mountings 
Come a stranger in the Spring — '^ 

An' sp'iled it all. The idle rich see her book, 
and come a-runnin',so the honest, friendly Ital- 
ian-Chermin boys and girls come to be high- 
rollers. The simple life oncet hed no prouder 
clime than the Tyrol. I 'How the sojers aint 
spendin' much, an' theh own men, so many, is 
off in the Balkans or in Galicia. Cortina hez 
they say, the finest views in the known world, 



6 FROM BLUE BYE TO BERLIN 

but is on open ground itself, so kaint be easy 
defended. I cal'late Ostry won't make mucli of 
a figbt fur it, fear of spHlin' the fine hotels, al- 
bergos, auberges, gasthauses and sich-like. 

I 'How, when we git to Trent, the view will 
fine, but they's some horrible forts two mile 
and a half this side. Most any Catholic kin 
tell about Trent, tho some of the men don' stay 
very closet to theh cattykism. The las' big 
round.up of the docterns of the Church was at 
the Council of Trent. In the early ages they 
held councils most ez oiFen ez Sunday school 
picnics — in Europe, Asia an' Afriky — and at 
airy one some alleged heresy got done up. In 
the sixteenth century Dr. M. Luther and others 
kicked fur a new council to re-form the battle 
line; but when it come it wor a boomerang; the 
Ole Guard hed a bigger sheer of the electors 
than Woodrow the Scholarly first time he run; 
I perzoom the re-formers claimed frodd; some 
say they was skeert of a ambush on root. 

\ After buckin' fur quite a spell, Pope Paul III 
decided he could call the bluff, any'ow he calls 
the council at Trent, wheh Lutherans was 
skeerce, an' the grocers wan't organized, an 
livin was cheaper than anywers outside Tyrol. 
It met Dec. 13, 1545, and spent about 50 cents 
a week per capita till March, 1547, when the 
Trent health officer got on a bender, and the 
cholera crawled in thro a crack in the fence. 
Bologna sausage was reckoned the best antidote 



ON-REDEEMED ITALY 7 

an' so the council moved to Bologna, but bolo- 
ney disagreed with all but the Franciscans, so 
the Pope sent 'em all home in September, 1549; 
he started 'em up agin May i, 1551, at Trent: 
that is Julius III did. In 1552 Maurice of 
Saxony marched a Protestant army in, after 
whippin Charles V: the council lit out fur theh 
several homes. Ten year later, Paul IV started 
it up agin at Trent, and in two year more the 
platform was completed, without a look-in fur 
the Lutherans or the Presbyterians: the doc- 
tern of Purgatory was settled, and the Index 
Expurgatorius pervided, and publishers noti- 
fied. This would of let out Hall Caine's latest 
book. Rabelais was already hidin' out, (and 
layin' all-fired low) behin' the ex post facto law. 
It concluded ez foUers: 

" Anathema to all heretics! Anathema!! 
Anathema ! ! ! 



The council begun 1545, ended 1564, but its 
work was all done in three two-year tricks. 

The members was law-abidin, and spent a 
little money, and the Tyrol hez bin strong 
Catholic ever sence. Pius IX held the next 
council at Rome in 1870, endurin' no mo' 'n a 
few weeks. It didn't kivver many p'ints: ez 
how the las' percedin council hed been slow but 
sure, "not fur its day only but fur all time , 



8 FROM BLUB EYE TO BERLIN 

Leastways its enactments is still in use, and 
workin' satisfactory. 

Trent is 'bout the same age as Rome, and is 
quite interestin'. Ef I git tlieli, I may write 
it up. Some say it's wu'tli a long visit. 

I kaint send mucli war news, bein' ez How I 
don't know much, and ef I did I aint dead sh©' 
I kin git it thro'. Italian censors is said to be 
right smart perliter than the Chermin; the last- 
named will say ''Verboten," and waste no mo' 
time on ye; the Italian will say, ''A brilliant 
letter, sir, and will please our friends in your 
kentry very much." But they do say the Cher- 
min will let go twiset ez much ez the Italian 
jest the same. 

MARCHKSE DI MIRANDOLA TO OUR HERO 

Udine, Sept. 19, 191 5. — You remember say- 
ing that, you were concerned in supplying the 
French cavalry in 1870 with horses from Mis- 
souri *'an' round theh." Our chiefs are im- 
porting what horses ^they can get, tho where 
this army now is, goats would seem to do bet- 
ter. However, we may later be somewhere 
where the hills are'nt so steep. Today I had 
an opportunity to mention your experience; 
you may hear of this thro' the regular channels 
soon. Can you tell a good mule? Not morally 
good, you know, but his barrel, heels, et cetera. 
Miss Yates can inform you why I can't visit 
the Fair as planned. With regrets sincere and 
' dearest love to * * — di Mirandola. 



Sette Communi and Thirteen 

St. Mike (San Michele) Dec. i8.— In '83 at 
Blue Eye, chickens got to disappearin so all- 
fired frequent the township ifusties held a 
special meetin. Jeff Purdy sejested offerin a 
cash reward of Ten Dollars dead or alive. Bill 
Jasper asked to hev it made ten dollars dead or 
twenty dollars alive. Jedge Purdy p'inted out 
it'd be a sight mo' dangersome to ketch the 
bandit 'live than to sneak up behind him in 
the bresh and shoot him. Bill 'llowed thet as 
one reason he sejested the extry ten, the other 
ez how he (or she) 'd be mo' of a curiosity: so 
ordered. 

I 'How the Austrians must of put it up to 
the King and Gen. Cadorna to totely destroy 
Trent befo' they could git it. Leastways we 
didn't go no neerder Trent than Levico. The 
Italians, I jedge, hated to spile the antiquated 
bildins and bric-a-brac of Trent, cal'latin, ef 
they git it, to make some money later on, out 
of tourists: them from Rome re-lizes how much 
they is in the tooris biznez. 

They was right smaht early fightin' between 



FROM BLUE EYE TO BERUN 10 

Levico and Pergine, but I wan't present. The 
Val Sugana ends east of Levico. Pergine, 7 
miles from Trent, is in the valley of the Fersi- 
na, which runs thro a deep ravine 'most to 
Trent, commanded in every pertickler by mod- 
ern artillery. Off to the northeast is five 
Chermin villages surrounded by an Italian 
population. The place they yodels so fine is 
mostly farther north, 

When Bill Jasper and me was in Minneapo- 
lis in '86» we see Vernona Zharbeau in ^'Star- 
light.*' She yodeled and talked in Chermin 
dialect in defiance of her French name. She 
told how ahe had a little colt when she sang at 
Monkey-Tail Hall in Cincinnati [Mercantile.] 
She danced in Wooden Shoes, and come down 
on the stage like a thousand of brick. Ln a 
drug store scene the37^ was a show-keerd on the 
wall — 

Ring the bell softly — 

They's mud on the knob. 
It was a parody on 

Ring the bell gentle, 

They's crape on the do'. 

Bill laffed fit to kill. I got shamed of him, 
but got to goin' bad as he, laffin at every 
blessed thing that come along. The prosperty 
of a jest is domiciled in gittin' em started so 
they kaint stop. I got so I'd laugh every darn 
time she opened her mouth, befo' she could git 
a word out. 

I felt shamed, too, when I come to think of 



SETTI COMMUNI AND THIRTEEN 11 

it; then I laff, feel sheepish that I done it, and 
then loflF at the very next one. 

I 'How the Italians don't keer much forTrent 
— fur some years it aint wot it used to be. At 
one time it was the richest town in ail the 
Tyrol, but them times has passed away, and 
tooris' will be sca'ce next summer. 

Off to the southeast from Trent is the Sette 
Communi, or Seven Communities, German 
villages inside Italy. This region is a high 
plateau, up about 3,000 feet, t covered with 
snow five months of the year, with a fringe of 
forest round the aidges. They made theh livin 
raisin, cattle and broad-rimmed straw hats, the 
latter in the winter mostly, after the cows was 
fed. Asiago is the biggest town, seven or eight 
thousand people. It has several fine biiildins, 
most of which will be damaged if the Ostrins 
take a notion to bumbard the town, which is 
at the mercy of big guns on the mountains 
ten to fifteen mile northwest. Toorists used to 
come in from the great woild afoot mostly, by 
a climb south from Borgo sometimes, oftener 
westward from Valstagna, in the Brenta valley 
after the Brenta bends south a few miles east 
of Borgo. The path from Valstagna leads one 
through the beautiful wild Frenzela gorge. 

Here at San Michele (Micheleis the Irish for 
Mike) we are eleven nnle north of Trent. I 
had meant to go to the olber vSan Michele, in 
the Isonzo valley, and take part in the offensiv 
agaist Goritzy. I didn't know they was two. I 
hed a hard time to git hyeh, too. This San 



12 ; BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

Michele is on the Adige, and is wheh toorists 
got off the keers for the Val di Non (rhymes 
with phone) and the Val di Sole (rhymes with 
Holy) which they traveled via backboard, or 
better yet on foot. The troops went in that 
way, laekin bnckboards. Val di Non perdnces 
wine and silk, and is only middlin' cold at this 
time of year, and the troops is still workin 
full time at comparative low wages. Folks in 
both these valleys is mostly Italian. 

South of Trent it's mo' than | twenty-seven 
mile to the Italian boundary, and jest inside of 
Italy is the Thirteen Communi, German settle- 
ments not so important as the Seven, which are 
thirty to forty mile northeast. The Thirteen 
are plumb south of Trent, and only a few mile 
due north of Verona, Juliet's home city. 

Xong here is wheh Ostry took the biggest 
bite out of Italy's boot-top. It's about twenty- 
two miles to Arco, where lots folks used to go 
for tooberkylosis. It has beautiful gardens. I 
hope they won't git damaged. Heavy fightin' 
round theh this winter. 



up in the Air 

SuMWERS in Back of Caldonazzo, Jan. 9, ^16. — 
Christmas eve a airyplane dropped a bum on 
my quarters at Borgo di Vai Sugana, sp'ilin 
my clothes some. I got a permit to move back 
six mile in the direction of Venice and Bagdad 
wheh 1 'llowed it 'd be safer. 

New Year's was all-fired cold. Endurin' the 
day twt) airyplanes got into a fight about 1400 
feet up in the sky from my place. They did 
mo' moukeyshines than Art Smith did at the 
S. F. Expozay. 

Leap-frog, Summer-sets, any way to git the 
Enemy,one to run each plane, another shootin' 
By and by one comes down, shot through his 
lights, 'bout ten rod off. I goes to him, still 
livin; he pints feeble to his inside pocket, then 
off north towrds Salzburg. When he's good 
sho' daid, I find six florins and two pictures. 

One I 'llowed was his best girl, the other his 
sister, with a chin jest like his'n. 

"B37 Jing, the sojer of Bingen over again. 

That night I gits so blamed cold it woke mc 
up. Jest as I woke, I felt a pistle in my face. 

*^Gid-dup," he says, in good U. S. 

Then he makes me show him wheh his pard- 
ner lays, a-leavin his airyplain bitched out in 



14 BI,UE KYK TO BERLIN 

front. I never see anything so dang cheeky. 

We kerries him, and straps him on the floor. 

/Now, gid-din." 

•*That^s another man's cheer.'* 

* He's gestorben wesen, and won't mind. Gid 
in, kervick !" 

"I kaint — my haid is too dizzy." 

He gives me a punch in the chist with his 
pistle-bar'l, and I takes the cheer. ^'Highness," 
I says," don't try any han'springs, please." 

He didn'V. we lit out down the big-road S. E. 
ez if plumb fur Venice, tight ez we could drive. 
When we got up about ten thousand foot, we 
made a long turn, smooth as silk, an' heads 
about ten p'ints no'th of west. I look cautious- 
like, to see off north, snow mountings of all 
shapes and sizes — mostly high ones— -Tofana, 
Civetta, Sorapis, Cristallo, Marmolata, Antelao, 
Pelmo. Acrost a lake, beyant the Austri'n lines 
we see a place fixed nice fur us to land, and we 
slid down, jest as Jan. % was dawnin.' 



A. Tourist Prisoner 

CaprilE, or as near to town as I^m allowed to 
go, Jan. 25.— We stayed 'round Trent four or 
^vt days, till the Archduke got skeert of losin 
us. In spide of the cold and snow, the renewed 
ivity on this front gave us to onderstand that 
the King and Gen. Count Cadorna have missed 
the key to the oats-bin at Borgo, which I had in 
my pants-pocket, and had ordered a counter- 
Smash to repatriate the oats-bin key and me. 
So our captors sent and took enough mo' pi'iz- 
ners to make a car-load. We didn't come in a 
a car, however. We walked, and carried a shov- 
el, a long-handled shovel, apiece to clear the 
rood for the teamsters as did ride. We came 
a roundabout way, bein' ez how [censored]. I 
got a fine view on root for hours of Marmolata, 
the biggest of the Dolomites. All the Dolomite 
part was kivvered out of sight under the 
snow. Ole Marmo. is over 11,000 feet high, 
nothin' like Mt. Blanc or Rainier or Shasta, 
but pretty good for this flat kentry. [Flat? 
I mean jag-ged. The Dolomites are steep and 



16 FROM BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

sharp or rough, and iniddlin tall. 

Speakin of Mout Blanc, Uncle Blair said the 
only times he ever made bulls or blunders bad 
enough to make him blush every time he recol- 
lects them: He was walkin from Chehalis to 
Centralia with the Sheriff, not in custody: they 
was both walkin home, bein as how they wan't 
no trolley then, and steam trains didn't run 
often or convenient. Blair got to braggin up 
Rainier, hov»?, standin with one foot at sea level 
one's -eye takes in all of old Rainier's 14,000 
foot — when it aint rainin, whereas in the case 
of many mountains, you're up half as high as 
the mountain when he comes first iu view. I 
paused for breath, and the Sheriff says quiet- 
like he growed up in sight of a taller mountain 
— Mt. Blanc. Blair was goin to bet the sheriff 
Blanc is only 12,500— he'll bet yet itas that 
in Monteith's & McNally's in '68. He's had 
Mt. Blanc right ever since, 15,782-3. 

The other time was when Uncle Blair in the 
hearing of a reti'd sea captain, who hed been 
theh, pronounced Barbadoes Barby-doze. Not 
long after he see something in London Punch 
that led him to believe that editor bad a similar 
notion of the word, such as had been ours since 
the blissful day of our first meeting with Rob- 
inson Crusoe. Blair made a jingle to show the 
true rhyme and sent it to the editor^ for his eye 
to read it all alone: 

Those little darkieSjTeddy-Bears, and dadoes 

Are recent importations from Barbados. 
A p'int agin Bianc, comparin with Rainier, the 



A TOURIST PRISONER 17 

peaks around Blanc's highest is so near as tall, 
while Rainier has no other peak within forty 
miles: St. Helens and Adams, southeast; north 
the only high peaks are Baker, near the Cana- 
dian border, ii,ooo foot high, in the Cascades, 
east of Pnget Sound, and Olympus, over 10,000, 
between tlie Sound and the Pacific, each more 
than a hundred miles away. 

Our cominon-dant speaks United States bet- 
ter 'n I; he kin handle bigger words, too. He 
worked on a vSeattle paper 1905; got took on in 
1 901 on Westliche Post, St. Louis (that Carl 
Schurz orice edited: gestorben mit a few year 
sence.) Ilappei^ed to be in Vienna and had to 
do his army duty. Talks to me middlin' free, 
bein' ez how he claims to be a sort of Himeri- 
can; 'llowed'he'd try to git throo a postle 
card I writ to the Himerican ambassador. A 
citizen of the world he is; says he's s'prized 
at the showin Huugairy and Ostr}^ is a-makin^ 
bein ez how they aint hed no truly war for 
fifty year, ard then the}/ got done up in six 
weeks. 

He's dumb Mt. Blanc, says 'taint no harder 
'n Mt. Tofana, out in plain sight from hyeh 
and only 10 000 foot high, vStill, some few hez 
got killed, mo-^t alleis comin' down, all from 
over-confident; looks so all-fired easy they gits 
started too fast and kaint stop when they git 
to a jumpin-off place they didn't notice goin 
up. Then they's a few places wheh once in so 
offen stones rolls down libel to bust yo' haid. 
Civetta, Marmolata, Cristallo, Sorapis, Pelmo, 



18 BI.UE EYE TO BERLIN 

Croda Rossa— 'most all the Dolomites, is harder 
to climb than Blanc. I see a San Francisco 
paper spelt Cristallo Christabel, which is pur- 
tier. He says all ye kin see of Mt. Blanc from 
'most anywers is jest his snoot, but its allers 
solid white— that's ez how he got^ his name — 
Blanc is Friuch for white: Even the big 14000- 
footer peeks close by turns gray mo' or less in 
midsiiufmer, but the snoot of old Blanc sticks 
up white and glistenin on the hottest days, 
when the ice cream is meltin pow'fu>Mn the 
vale of Chamounix, about 4,000 foot up; but ye 
kaint see the tip or snoot from the town or the 
railroad terminus-station; ye see some under- 
study mountings but not old Blanc. And in 
the summer about three-quarters of the days 
Blanc has his *^toppy" buried in a cloud of fog, 
like tlie srjow banner of Shasta, only mo' con- 
ceHltji'. It's so danged hot below, so danged 
cold at the top. On top o( Blanc hisself the 
view from the top of his tip aint much, nothin' 
like Monte Rosa or the Matterhorn from Zer- 
matt, or cl<:»se by, or the Jungfrau, Eiger or 
Moench from Lake of Thnn, or of several Dol- 
omites from the big road jest beyant Cortina,or . 
Civetla froi;) Capri le. On top of a low mount- 
ing out in front, like Nuvolau, Generoso, Rigi, 
the Faulborn, Swilzerlivud, is the best place to 
see a bunch of llieni biggest nioinitings from 
to once. lie says in? • higle moviutitig looks ez 
big and imposiTi as Isainier from Puget Sound, 
or Shasta from a S^^'itheni Pacillc train that 
keeps circlin' rouv'^ --•'■•d jound hlvi for half a 



A TOURIST PRISONER 19 

day, till ye kaint tell wheh ye air. 

Uncle Blair once told me the bes' view of 
Rainier is at Xakeview station, on the North- 
ern Pacific, 'bolit nine mile south of Tacoma. 
To one postjsd there he shows only one highest 
peak, that on a sullny day seems to rise almost 
directly per||ndicler above you, like a great 
shadow, though many miles southeastward. 
Rainier has a great many rainy and cloudy 
days, when he kaint be seen at all, to balance 
the fogs of Mount Blanc. 

The «0mmon-Danty (I call him that when I 
talk in Italian) kin read Italian as good Cher- 
min. ( I shouldn't wonder he kin speak Irish.) 
He got a Milano paper tellin ez how the Itali- 
ans had been shellin the station at Toblach, 
in the Pooster Thai. I had no idee they had 
got no'th so fur. Looks like ez ef that endan- 
gers this bunch, but I aint and the common- 
dant don't act skeert. 

Toblach is wheh mos' tourists gits off ths 
cars for the Dolomites via Schluderbach, Cor- 
tina and the Ampetzo. 

Mebby they's tired climbin' mountings, and 
want to ride on the keers, or mebby they want 
to git to Toblach jest to stan' aroun and see 
the cars come in, like we used to in early days 
at Berrvville. 



*l 



Schwester fiartmann 

Salzburg, Feb. 14, via Amsterdam und so 
welder. — I wor allers an admirer of Admiral 
Van Tromp and old Peter Stuyvesant and hope 
mebby they'll let tbis go past. 

They's six Salzbergs in tbis part of Austry, 
but only one Salzburg: Salzberg near Iscbl, 
ditto near Aussee, do. near Hall^ ditto near 
Bercbtcsgaden, ditto near Hallstadt. 

Salzburg is the most Cbermin city in Franz 
Josef's empire, wbicb isn't sayin much, bein ez 
how said empire is awful mixed up fur raccs^ 
nations, dialects and languages. But even iu 
Prooshy, they aint no large town that's purer 
Teutonic than Salzburg; here the people are 
99/^ pel" cemt (99.5) Cbermin. In the whole 
provinz only one-half of one per cent belongs 
to other nations or races. 

Somehow it seemy like ye strikes the most 
beautiful places at the wrong time of year. 

In 1877 ^ man come to Blue Eye. He come 
in a private car till he got to the end of the 
railroad. He come to the foot of the Rainbow 



SCHWESTER HARTMANN 21 

after travlin a few mo* mile, mostly up-hill — 
some one had tol' him the fishin' was good. In 
a whole week he got only four or five bull- 
heads and two squirls. 

In spide of its common, cheap-by-the-ton 
name, Salzburg (Saltville) is one of the purti- 
est places that lays out-doors. How much pur- 
tier it must be in beauteous May ! 

Green and white matches beautiful; but the 
white is out of all proportion now, I reokon 
the green wil,l be too much in Ma}^ probly not. 
They's enough snow mountings in sight all 
summer long to make a nice, white trimming. 
The city is split in two by the river Salzach 
(Salt River). The Cathedral and big biznes« 
is on the left-hand side coming down stream, 
or going up from the railroad station. When 
many years ago the Grand Duke of Tuscany 
was fired, and his folks j'ined united Italy, his 
'Ighness bought the big Residenz Schloss or 
palace, right acrost the Residenz Platz from 
the telegraph oince aDd the Cathedral. Along 
the west side of the Schloss is the Kapitel 
Platz, on the opposite side of which is situated 
the fine old antique, the Archbishop's palace, 
restored some years sence. 

Close by, high above the town, and right in 
town, too, 400 feet above the Kapitel Platz, is 
the old fortress of Hoheri-Saizburg. It dates 
from the 9th century, and still looks threatenin 
and fierce, high, stern, forbidding, rugged; but 



22 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

present-day artillery would tumble down quick 
the grim, imposing pile. 

In old times they wan't no way to take the 
Fortress except by starvin the garrison to 
death. 

Salzburg castle or fortress minds me some 
of Edinburgh Castle, though I 'How Salzburg 
has Edinburgh beat most ways. Each is 
right in town, and each nevertheless marks 
quite similar the deadline, 

"Thus far and no farther." 



The three Platzes that surrounded grand olc 
Tuscany and his Palace on three sides — Dom 
plaiz, Residenz platz, Kapitel platz — has most 
of the fine bildinS, wealth and biznez. The 
beer gardens and cheap real estate is acrost the 
Salzach, at the south end of the east side, just 
outside the suburb of Stein, which is like the 
city of Piedmont (by Oakland) surrounded on 
all 'sides by Salzburg City. Otherwise the 
salt city's suburb resembles Emeryville more 
than Piedmont; but Emer3^ville has Oakland 
on three sides only; on the fourth is the Bay. 
Stein does not approach the river. 

In time of peace a big beer stein is this 
suburb's Emblem. But when the blasts of 
War break on our ears, the stein is remanded 



SCHWESTER HARTMANN 23 

to the cellar, and St. Francis Joseph Mars is 
set forward in liis place. 

[In the old steamboatin days the party that 
got licked went ''up salt river'' after election. 
Above this town the Salzach is too steep in 
places for skatin; and much of the scenery is 
like Edgar W. Nye's perpendicular farm; lots 
of retairuing walls to keep the mountings from 
jurapin' into the river, and also blockin' the 
railroad. 

They paraded us prizners in front of the 
iCathediaj to show the ladies what their men 
have been a-doin. But we're a-p^oin to laugh 
last, my dears. They didn't march us far tor 
fear of makin' us mo* hungry. 

Scliwester and The Betrothed were out to 
see us, but they didn't know me then. 

Our common-Dante smiled pleasant at me, 
and I asked how kin I deliver the lock of 
ha'r and the pictures to the avvytor's sister 
who lived in the northeast part of the city, on 
the right or east bank, to the north of the 
Capuzinberg, not far from the Park and the 
railroad station. This part of the city has 
done most all the growin that's been done in 
the last thirty years. The older city lies be- 
tween two great hills or mountains: The 
Moenschberg, west of the river, about two 
miles long, and the Capuzinberg, east of the 



Z4 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

Salzach. The common-Dante some time sence 
applied for more dangerous service; he today 
received an order granting his request, and he 
goes to Trieste tomorrow. He is right smart 
elated, and believes now he will be given 
command of a submarine or a airyplane. He 
kin navigate either. He says to me, off-hand 
like, he hisself be my guard when I go to de- 
liver the lock of flaxen hair to The Betrothed, 
and will then turn over his command. 

A gently-warming sun had softened a little 
the snow when the common-Dante and I set 
out, each equipped with a permit from the 
General commanding the Garrison of Salzberg. 
He had to have one, same as I. We crossed 
tlie river on the footbridge, and walked through 
the Municipal Park, which had come to be re- 
nowned for its summer beauty. 

In a quaint and comfortable-seeming cottage 
iu a quiet strassy, not far from three or four 
costl}^ villaSj we found Frau Hart m an n and 
Sch wester, mother and sister of Lieutenant 
Reinhold Hartmann, shot down from a airy- 
plane on the banks of the Brenta. One and 
only one glance showed to us that the two 
women had learned of his death. Something 
akin to resentment was expressed in Frau 
Hartraann's proud, fine face, as if she would 
herself demand of the Kaiser: 

Franz Josef, geben sie mein Sohn 
h era us ! 



SCHWESTER HARTMANN 25 

Schwester seemed Cliermin enough to match 
her pet-name: what her truly, Christian name 
is I haven't asked her yet. She had the calm 
and quiet ways, tlie mild brown eyes and light- 
brown hair, clear, cream and peaches skin, one 
found so often among German girls before the 
war. She wore a house-dress of homespun 
butternut-brown. 



The common-Dante persented me to Fran 
Hartmann as the Himerican who had received 
the Herr Lieutenant's last message. I riz to 
take her pmlTered h^nd when the street door 
was pushed open as if by one accustomed and 
a tall girlj an inch or so taller than Schwester, 
a year or two 3/ounger like as not, with hair 
the sheen and color of that blonder gold they 
used to coin into $5 and $10 pieces at the Mint 
which John C. Calhoun persuaded Uncle Saml 
to establish near one of his three plantations. 
[Near Dahlonega, Georgia. The other two one 
discovers were in South Carolina, neither of all 
a large one.] Her skin was even fairer, whiter 
than Schwester Hartmann's. Her eyes blue- 
azure. A pathetic touch was given to the pic- 
ture by a black dress, mad^ nid worn quite 
simply. February's frosty air had sent into 
her cheeks a faint under-curreul: of color. Sh« 
was presented to us both as The Betrothed. 

She talked frahkly of the Herr Lieutenant. 
From the beginning of the war sT-e ■ ' " ''' a 



26 BUTE EYE TO BERLIN 

presentiment that it would bring misery and 
grief to her: 

Adieu, mein allerliebt Schaelchen, 

Wir sehn uns nimmermehr. 

When Uncle Blair was a small, half-orphan 
boy, he used to visit on Saturda3^s the family 
of his mother's sister. The two women were 
daughters of a Pennsylvania German and the 
former, before her death, had arranged for 
these visits. When it was time for the visitor 
little boy to go home, his host would approach 
the home authorities with a request to go 
^'part way'' with his guest. When Bayard Tay- 
lor, in 1845, set out on foot fiom Frankfort for 
Vienna, a number of Frankfort boys and girls 
went **part way." I thought of this when the 
Schwester asked her mother if The Betrothed 
and she might go part way with us. 

Before we started' The Betrothed sang the 
old ballad, 'Xenore," by Buerger: 

"Oh mutter, mutter, bin ist hin — 
Verloren is verloren ! 
Der Todt, der Todt is mein Gewinn; 

Oh, waere Ich nie geboren !" 

The sun was right smart lower, the air more 
frosty, and the snow beginning to crunch 
nnder our feet when we four turned into the 
portal Capuzinerberg from which, by 250 steps, 
we ascended to the gate of the Monastery of 
the Capuchins. In the park we inspected the 



SCHWESTER HARTMANN 27 

"little house'' that belonged to Mozart, which 
was brought hither all the way from Vienna; 
the latter city is a leetle over two hundred mile 
east by northeast from Salzburg. It was con- 
sidered best to consolidate all the Mozartyanna 
in this town, which has jest reeked of Mozart, 
fur some years. They keep his skull sumwers 
in town to show tourists, but I cal'late our two 
girls won't take us to see it. In this ^'Mozart- 
hauschen" the great composer-pianist finished 
his "Zauberfloete." In front of the little house 
is a bronze bust of Mozart that has been genius 
loci of the hauseschen sence 1877. 

If Mozart were livin now, he might like as 
not be besiegin Warsaw, and I. J. Paderewski 
defending. 

My w^ord 1 but Schwester is a walker ! She 
swung up the 250 stone steps to Mozart's little 
house, breathed one sigh and started to once 
on the 400 more steps up thro the woods to the 
Aussicht nach Bayern — the Out-Look over 
Bavaria. Salzburg corners on Bavaria — that 
iz, the southeast corner of Bavaria is jest im- 
mediately acrost the river from this cit}^ You 
see the south boundary of Bavaria runs westly 
from Salzburg. Both banks of the river, inside 
this city, belong to Austry. North of the city 
the left bank is in Bavaria. To the southward, 
and right in the city, it's hilly, even mountain- 
ions, but northward is plenty of level ground. 
On the east side, some forty rod north of Frau 



^8 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

Hartman's cottage, stands Maria Plain, a fam- 
ous pilgrim church. Northwest, the Bavarian 
plain starts right here, and stretches away to 
Munich, ninety miles. 

The Betrothed stood beside Sch wester at the 
x\ussicht, the fast-descending sun converting 
the flying strands of breeze-entouzeled hair into 
a halo of glory about her golden head. On the 
north at the left is the suburb, of MuUn, at the 
right Maria Plain, iu the center the Salzach, 
from now Bavarian, speeding o'er the levels. 

Farther and higher, the two pow'ful girls 
led us to the Obere-stadt Aussicht. Baedeker, 
so the common-Dante said, pronounced this the 
finest view on the Capuzinberg. The Aussicht 
is 682 feet above the river and discloses the 
Fortress, the City, and the Hochstauffen, Un- 
tersberg and Berchtesgaden mountains. 

The sun was setting as we hurried through 
the stone portal into the Lienzergasse street. 
Then we walked'^part way"homewithSch wester 
and The Betrothed. 

I got two Valentines today, one from each, 
both painted by the Betrothed. Hers was & 
portrait t)f Seh wester, with a bunch of Edel- 
weiss, or some sieli, in her hand. Schwester's 
was a head of Mozart, who was born here. 



Salt of the Earth 

ISCHL (Salzkammergut) March 17, 1917 (a hol- 
iday in Austry) — Sence the common- Dante 
went away, our guards is mostly ladies. Isn't 
that fine? 

The Chermin is a great language, of depth 
and power, but is s'prizin different at several 
p'ints from our free and easy United States. 
Hell in Anglo-Saxon is a bad word, or at best 
a bad place; it is one of the finest words in the 
Chermin language. ^ Yesterday the sun come 
out sudden and lit up a dark and shadowed 
co'ner of the Traunsee, and I overheered the 
Countess in command ejeculate: *'Hell!" Then 
I remembered that Hell in Chermin translated 
means bright and clear. She doesnt look like 
a lady who'd zwear wantonly. Our old com- 
niondant is sumwers on a sekert mission, and 
they's probly big doin's ahead; mebby he 'Hows 
to capture Venice; a Venetian (Venediger) mit 
us says Venice jest now is long on gondolas & 
palaces und short on tourists, tips and home 
folks. He 'Hows it might surrender to 'Meric* 



30 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

but not to Austry. He's a voter in New York, 
and is for Hughes, and Chauncey M. Depew. 
He aint got n rvlliiu agin the King of Italy, 
but didn't caVlate on gittin captured when he 
volunteered. 

Salzkammergut is a prettier name in its own 
speech than in United States. It means Treas- 
ury Salt Reserve. 

They's one other Merican prisoner here A 
lady guard slapped him for speakin of Dr. 
Dumb-Bells (Dumba.) The lady was repo'ted, 
but I kaint blame her much. Such a pun 
would of made Theodo' Hook nervous. Fired 
at her by a supposedly friendly pow', too. 

Salt is a Government monopoly in Austr}^ 
and gives the official a dead mortal clutch on 
not the folks alone but the cattle, sheep, hogs, 
horses, dtQv^ bear, potatoes and celery. They 
all got to have salt. 

They run the salt thro pipe lines for quite 
a ways like Standard Oil. Fur instance here 
at Ischl don't make it up but run it down to 
Ebensee at the head of the Trauusee, a beau- 
tiful lake — in spring. This provinz is small, 
comparin with Salzburg : 250 square (most of 
them is crooked) miles, and not mo' than 20,- 
000 people. The scenery is grand but not 
thick. In that small space is two fine lakes: 
the Traunsee and Atterod See, and one little 
one, the Amsee. They niarclied us up the 
lake from Gmuenden. Off to the left is the 



SALT OF THE EARTH 31 

Traunsteiu, not quite six thousand foot high, 
but all-fired steep. Winter befo' last Peggy 
read to me 'bout Bayard Taylor hoofin it (or 
climbin) up the Traunstein [Views Afoot]. We 
see a town of Traunstein on the map, on the 
aidg of Bavaria, 'bout seventy-five miles from 
here, and cal'lated that was the place; but I 
^llow this here is it. In back farther is the 
Wildekogl a thousand foot higher; also the 
Erlakogl, the Gruenberg and Kleine Sonnstein 
— all nice tor tourists after the Wah. . 

When Gen. Sam Gary spoke at vSpringfield 
in '76 he denounced the Republican party for 
taxin' salt, and Jedge Purdy, in a front seat, 
laffed sneerinly. Sam looks fierce an' repeats: 

'* Taxes yer salt — sugar, I mean 

Then he takes a drink of water and chokes. 
He'd been a Democrat Lieutenant Governor 
of Ohio, and allers choked on water. He 
turns and stage-whispers to the cheerman: 

''Which is it they tax — salt or sugar ? " 

*' Danged if I know"^ — which madeit wusser. 

Them Italians is awful at keepin things to 
theirselves— had Cortina since last May, and I 
didn't know it. Our Countess says they kin 
feed them remittance invalids, and welcome. 

I spect the}^ guv up Cortina without a fight 
to save the new hotel, and the Italians kept 
away from Trent to save the old Cathedrals. 
A grain of salt, even a spooful, may sift in this. 



A Horsetrader Hero 

Wot fur they sent us to Innsbruck I dunno 
unless it got out that we were plot tin to es- 
cape and go to see the Oppery in Vienna. 
Grub may be skeerce, aud bizuez not as usual, 
but Vienna has got to hev Oppery. 

I fears one of my cherished dreams is busted 
that my stately figger won't never adorn the 
Ringstrosse, even for an hour. 

To git to Innsbruck from Ischl we had to 
come past Munich, wliere we had the choist of 
two railroads part way up. Wc were paraded 
thro Munich like w^e was at Salzburg, mebby 
to show the city what kind of hoss-styles they 
air up against. Munich is a fine city, and lots 
of ladies dressed beautiful was out to 'dmir® 
us. [Since the foregoing, Munich aiithorities 
have forbidden women to wear liiie clothes on 
the street.] I was pow'ful sore they didn't in 
f ite us to visit the Pinnakothek, which is one- 
of fonr or five greatest art collections. They 
wan't much danger of us kerryin noile of the 
great Pain tins off. * ^ 

As I was say in, we had to cut acrost Bavaria 



A HORSETRADER HERO 33 

Bavaria, but that wan't no trouble, bein ez how 
the two kentries is on good terms now; they 
didut even paw over our baggage at the front- 
ear of Ostry; cause why our trunks had gone 
astray, so we hadn't none to speak of. 

The poet Campbell lived and died in the 
delusion that the Battlefield of Hohenlinden 
was right on the river Isar so they jest rolled 
the dead bodies into the river and floated them 
down to the Crematory like they used to float 
logs down the Skookumchuck. Hohenlinden 
is full twenty mile from the river Isar, which 
comes no nearer than the city of Munich. 

On Linden, when the sun was low 
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow. 
And dark as winter was the flow 
Of Iser [Isar] rolling rapidly. 

The fact is Hohenlinden is as fur from any 
river or any railroad as any town kin be nowa- 
days. The Hohen has some to do with that. 
Like Bethany (VV.)Va. or Damascus, O., Hoh- 
enlinden was quite a place before railroads was 
drempt of and thot the railroads had to come 
to it even if they had to climb a ladder to git 
to their high and healthful site. 

Andy Johnson opposed vigorous the charter- 
ing of the first railroad in Tennessee because it 
would put the six-horse teamsters out of busi- 
ness. When the railroads had got to goin 
good, the teamsters was doin' more business 
than ever. Our train passed within nine mile 



34 BUTE EYE TO BERLIN 

of Hohenlitiden. It is out on the perairy most 
due east of Municli. If there is a crick, spring 
or Water-Hole anywers near, taint shown on 
a recent map. Nobody could of fit a battle 
where it would do less damage to abutting 
property. Gen. Moreau commanded here for 
Napoleon, and the Little Corporal hisself could 
of hardl}^ done better. He was jealous after 
that of Moreau. 

Up to 1813 Bavaria fit for the French aginst 
Austry, and there was cordial hatred between 
Bavaiii and the Tyrol, whose people had ever 
displayed friendship and loyalty to the family 
of Haps burgh. 

One of the two Railway lines from Munich to 
Innspruck is twenty miles longer than is the 
other. I kaint see how the longer line kin do 
biziiez, as the longest is only T09 mi. But the 
short line is mo' Hilly and picturesque, which 
enables the longer line to keep even by faster 
running. 

Mo' towns is on the long route. I got a good 
look at the Tegernsee, a favored haunt of the 
Empress Elizabeth of Ostry. King Ludwig II 
was drownded here. 

Two blacksmiths was called to the colors, so 
I'm a-doin their work. They don't watch me 
cloast, relying on professional ethics to charge 
wot's right, or wot's plenty. Prices is low, com- 
parin with Blue Eye. 

I repaired a J'int in the Hof Kirche, where 
Emperor Max. I. has a fine stattoo. He died 



A HORSHTRADER HERO 35 

1519. He don* git as much notice as Andreas 
Hofer, humbly born but of romantic fame, 
who was a shipper of horses and kep' a wine 
shop. The latter occupied the corner store on 
the one best street of Innsbruck, in the same 
building with the hotel that Andreas, and his 
father before him, also kept. Sich a store, in a 
similar location (situation is a better word) in 
Cleveland, O., or Oakland, would rent for $200 
a month. In Innsbruck, owing to the low cost 
of living, it 'd bring in less 'n $9. Each of 
the Hofers sold wine at wholesale and retail. 
Horses they never re-taikd (though Andreas, 
so Napoleon asserted, would once in*a%hile 
paint a zebra for a Hamburg menagerie-supply 
house) — horses they ^'shipped" in droves or in 
bands rather to Italy. The Inn valley is noted 
lor good horses. Innsbruck (Inn's Bridge) has 
been called the second most beautiful town of 
the German Alps, Salzburg first: fights not big 
for the Iselberg are held in the Exerciser Place. 
Hofer was born 1767 at St. Leonhard, in the 
Passeyr valley, near Meran; he led a corps of 
riflemen operating against Napoleon on the 
shores of Lake Garda in 1796; in 1803 helped 
to organize Tyrol's militia. In 1805 Napoleon 
transferred Tyrol bodily from Austria to Bava- 
ria. In 1808 Hofer became leader of Tyrol and 
went to Vienna on invitation of the Archduke 
John to concert a rising. In 1809 he defeated 
the Bavarians in three battles near Innsbruck. 
Two of these were fought on the Iselberg, a big 
wooded hill just south of town. At school, wc 



36 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

used to say to the other boy, who was often 
the biggest: 

*'I dare you out of doors 

If he wanted to start a fight. That was the 
way at the Iselberg. Hofer would gether his 
Tyrolean warblers and shootzen men on the 
Berg, then send a Ultimattum to the French 
and Bavarians at Innsbruck te come up aud 
fight. If they refused, Hofer's sharpshooters 
gits busy, men brung up to hit the Chamois or 
Mountain Sheep standin' on the p'int of a 
rock acrost a mountain valley several hundred 
higher than the shootzen man, and fix it so it 
falls in the psychic, accessible spot. That^s as 
how they always come out. 

In one of these battles Hofer wiped the 
ground with the French under Marshal Lefeb- 
vre. Lefebvre was husband of Madame Sans- 
Gene in What's-His-Name's play. Madame 
was Napoleon's wash-lady, laundered his shirt 
and unspeakables when he was a poor young 
man. His bill was shocking small, yet ke was 
owing her nearly thirty-five francs when his 
ship come in and he was given command of the 
Army of Italy. 

She never did his laundry free: that wasn't 
her idee of biznez; but she gave him things to 
eat and scolded him awful for starvin' hisself. 
After he got to be Emprer she scolded him 
oftener yet, and slapped him » few times. The 



A HORSETRADER HERO 37 

Emprer made Lefebvre Duke of Dantzic for 
cleanin' up in 1806 what was left of the Prus- 
sians after Jena. Lefebvre didnt use his title 
a great deal. 

One day a stranger accosted him: 

^'Is the DuTce of Dantzic accessible? '^ 

**Duke of Dantzic? That must be that d — 
near-sighted Russian that was hangin 'round 
headquarters yesterday." 

He would of answered to Lefebvre. 

Hofer was elected Oberkommandant of Tyrol 
and for six weeks he resided in the Schloss 
Tyrol. Hofer wore whiskers. Then for the 
third time Tyrol was invaded, this time by 
40,000 French and Bavarians. Hofer fled, de- 
feated. By the armistice of July 14, T3^rol was 
given unconditionally to Bavaria. 

Emperor Francis sent a chain and medal to 
Hofer, signifying gratitude. Andreas took it to 
be encouragement to do more, so broke out 
again. He was captured by some of Napoleon's 
Italian soldiers, taken to Mantua, tried at the 
head of a drum, and shot Feb. 20, 1810. 

All the officers who convicted Andreas asked 
that his life be spared. But Napoleon was piti- 
less, insisted on something besides Maria Lou- 
isa to show for whippin Austry onct; more. 

Endurin them six weeks in Schloss Tyrol, 
he governed well and fairly. In 1823 his body 
was returned to Innsbruck, seyenteen years be- 
fore Napoleon's was brought back from Saint 
Helena. In the Franciscan Church is a fine 



38 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

stattoo in marble of Andreas Hofer by Scballer 
witH reliefs by Klieber. The costly and elab- 
orate monument of the Emperor Maximilian, 
in the center of the nave, surrounded by many 
(28) colossal statues of "heroic aijcestors" and 
twenty-four reliefs on the sarcophagus have not 
attracted more attention from tourists than the 
less sumptuous (the word Baedeker uses) mon- 
ument to Hofer, with its six Tyrolese binding 
themselves by an oath over a lowered banner, 
in relief. These six represent the six districts 
of Tyrol. On either side are the tombs of two 
devoted followers: TheCapuchin monk Haspin- 
ger and Speckbacher the chamois-hunter. 

The Franciscan cathedral is called by home 
folks the Hof kirche. 

Andreas was the fust horsetrader I call to 
mind whose counterfeit has been handed down 
in marble, and who wa'nt never accused of 
cheatin. 



Healthy Meran 

I wor puzzled when they told me to pack up 
and go to Meran, which is a hunderd mile the 
way we come, but cal'late now it wor ez how 
I'm too handsome, too interestin to the ladies, 
but when five or six women get jealous, what 
is a man to do ? The three weeks I was at 
Innsbruck the day patrolwoman on our block 
was changed six times. They all would look in 
and snnle as they marched past Ladies 'dmire 
a muscled, brawny arm. One guv me a bunch 
of vi'lets when I quit work at six; the nex day 
a new one come on; her second day she left 
a can of peaches in the shop by mistake; that 
night two Italian blacksmiths arriv, and I was 
sent fur to Meran. My guard looked as if 
she was going to cry, but said that Meran is 
healthy. 

From 6 a. m. to 7 the Plauptman teached tbc 
ladies how to shoot — they^s mostly too all-fired 
accurit to suit us prizners — was all I didn't 
like. 

We laid over a da}^ at Boatzen, to see train 



40 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

after train of troops pass, headed, I ^llow for 
sumvvers in Italy. Boatzen is twiset bigger *n 
Meran but not so much to see, but is right 
smart mo' important militarih^, stragetically, 
and commercialistically.lt is ravishingly situate 
at the confluence of the Talfer and the Eisack 
rivers. The'Eisack falls into the Esch (Adige) 
three mile below town, but that junction don't 
amount to no confluence. I kaint jest onder- 
stand why, but jest this moment it dawns on 
me mebby a confluence has to have a seprit 
vc.lle}^ to back it up. At Coblentz the Moselle 
and Rhine form a confluence (the town used to 
be named Confliientia by the old Romans.) If 
the Rhine is the bigger, mo' famous river, the 
Moselle and its valley are far mo' important to 
Coblentz. Like the railroad that ends at Ber- 
ryville is mo' valne to the town than if it went 
on to Springfield and Kansas City. The San 
Joaquin and Sacramento, comin' from opposite 
directions, have a meeting place but no conflti- 
ence. They aint no city theh. The Ohio and 
Mississippi have a confluence at Cairo, but the 
Missouri jest Jines the Mississippi without no 
Confluence. 

In olden times mo' towns was built in way 
up high places like Jerusalem than at the lower 
down Confluences. But when the railroads ap- 
peared everybody see tliat the Confluences had 
'em beat. That's ez how Bound Brook, N. J., 
and Havre de Grace, Md., or Quincy, Mass., 
each had a railroad fifty year before Jerusalem, 
which was an important city 800 B. C. or mo'. 



HEALTHY MERAN 41 

Between Sterzing ar^d Brixerj, close b}?' Sterz- 
ing, ib^ Franzenfeste, armed to the teeth and 
toenails. It is up 2,460 feet, and is supposed 
to command both val]e3/s, the Eisack southwest, 
and the far-famed Pust^rthal. I 'How the Ital- 
ians don't keer fur Franzenfeste, and that them 
shootin up Toblach was a Faint, or mebby an 
attempt at Flan kin, rather than tackle her (or 
is a Fortress him?) in front at a cost that wood 
stagger humanity, as Oom Paul 'd say. 

The Pusterthal is one of the largest valleys 
ot this region, wide enough to farm in several 
places. It has two rivers. The folks along the 
Rienz west of Lienz is Chermin, and them on 
th Drave, east of Lienz, is Slavs. 

A couple of mile southwest of Botzen the 
Eisack jines the Adige, w^hich takes a kink 
jest above, comes in from the northwest, turns 
here and runs plum south into Romeo & Juli- 
et's town and on past. 

Our road follered the Adige northwest until 
a mile from Meran, twenty mile from Botzen. 

Meran is short for Merry Ann or Mary-Ann. 
It is the old capital of Tyrol. When Napoleon 
Bonaparte was young and slim, he cut down to 
one meal a day to get a copy of Plutarch's 
Lives. But things got to comin so fast and so 
easy that he furgit the lessons it learnt him — 
furgit the dry and crinkly hide of a buffalo 
that the Seieucian spread on a flat little piece 
of ground in front of Alexander to show how 
when he went to one corner the other 'd tip up 
—intimatin that his empire was already too 



42 BLUE BYE TO BERLIN 

big, 'thout waitin to take them in. Napoleon 
made sumwers aloug here the boundary 'tween 
Italy and Bavaria, teetotaly obliterating Tyrol. 
In 1813, when the Tyroleans heered that the 
Russian corner had tipped up on Napoleon, 
they riz. 

These bones shall rise again. 

And purty soon Bavaria shook him, too, bein* 
ez how he'd got so many of their men-folks 
Slayed. On a house in the Rennweg is a tab- 
let ez how Andreas Hofer spent there his last 
night in the Tyrol. 

Fur some reason, Tyrol was allers great 
friends with the Hapsburg family. One of its 
gre;atest ladies — I used to know her name as 
I do Peggy's, but I disremember now, used to 
live a good sheer of her time at Schloss Tyrol 
(ax-scent on the roll.) After the war ye kin 
inspect the castle fur seven cents ef they don't 
h'ist the price, as they's libel to, to pay fur the 
War. Schlcss-Tyrol is hard walkindistance 
from town — some three mile. I cal'late the 
Italians won't try to come here, on account of 
the invalids and cure-houses, probly pertected, 
like Cortina, by the Gold Cross, like the Red 
Cross pertects the sick soldiers. Tliey'll push 
to Vienna probly up past Goritzy, Laibach and 
on northeast if they kin. These town aint so 
much elevation as I reckoned. Botzen is 880, 
Meran 1050: Meranlies cozily sheltered in the 
Passer valley, at the foot of a vine-clambered 



HEALTHY MERAN 43 

mountain, the Kuechelberg. The Adige is half 
a mile from town, at its neerdest, where the 
Passer Confluences with it. 

Ez the lady said, Meran makes a special of 
bein' healthy. It has a whey cure in Spring. 
By the time grapes is ripe the invalids is tired 
of whey. The grape cure which they have in 
the fall (ottum) is also renowned. Meran, as 
have all German and Austrian towns, levies a 
visitors' tax of one florin (four-bits 50 cents) a 
week. Well folks have to pa}^ this, same as 
invalids. No strangers exempt except prizners 
of War. English and Himericans buck awful 
at this visitor' tax, and allers did. That's wot 
made the Vienna Exposition of 1873 a financ- 
ial failure. It cost like Sam Hill to get there, 
and the visitors' tax was the last straw. If you 
git out of town within three days you are not 
taxed. Quite a number got out. The English 
mostly knowed about this tax, which fact never 
diminished their holler one bit, if it did lack 
the element of surprise, which was the keynote 
of the typical Himerican roar. Quoth a guest, 
a veteran General of U. S. A.: 

'^Don't you want visitors here ? " 
^'It is immaterial (Das macht nicht aus)." 
** Then why do you solicit travel custom?'^ 
*'That is the innkeepers, this is Guvverment. 

On the right bank of the Passer (Pass-Air) 
is the Gisela Promenade, a fancy modern name 



44 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

for the old Wassermauer or bulwarks (a ento- 
mology of Boulevards. In more 'n one city the 
old ramparts afforded the most available place 
for an evening Ramble, and in time Boulevard 
come to mean Ramble-Place. 

No smoking is or was allowed on this Prom- 
enade, or on the piazza of the Cure-House, or 
in the Cure-Garden up-stream. The Passer is 
a frolicsome river, and the Promenade is useful 
still sometimes as a levee or bulwark, The of- 
ficial name of the Cure-Garden is the Untere 
Wiutere Anlage. 

On the left bank is a contrast. The Band 
plays in front of the Cure-House on the right 
bank in the middle of the mild winter-days; it 
plays both Spring and Fall on the left bank, 
in the Untere und Obere Sommer Garden, only 
in Winter does the Band play for the Invalids 
and in the Under and Over Garden the folks, 
drink beer snd smoke twenty-five hours a day, 
ef ye kin save that much daylight. In the 
Under and Over Garden, folks is drinkin wine 
and beer while the invalids on the right bank 
is drinkin whey. Ye aint allowed, in times of 
peace even, to drink mo' beer than ye kin hold, 
yet ye kin drink beer on both banks of the 
picturesque Passer. But on the left bank ye 
are not obstructed by signs 

Smokin Verboten 

That's where the left batik has the right bank 



HEALTHY MERAN 45 

beat, and they put it onto the right bank by 
havin* an under and over garden both. 

Meran has jest one long biznez street, with 

arcades (uuter den Lauben) on either side — 

handy to hitch horses in front of. Some comes 

in from valleys on horseback, mo' on Shanks' 

mare, special since the War started. 

Acrost the Passer, dividin' np with the 
under and over gardens, are the two villages 
of Unter Mais and Ober Mais. It is cooler 
in Ober Mais than in Meran or Unter Mais. 

Most folks think* that Scliloss Tyrol took 
its name from the kentry or provinz, but jest 
opposit is true. The Tyrol took its name from 
the Schloss. It is on the northwest slope of 
the Kuechelberg, round the bend from Meran. 
From its windows are several piuDSpects of 
wondrous beauty. From its elevation of 214 ^ 
feet, one can see for twenty miles adown th : 
Adtge, with the porphyry mountains bordering 
the picture on the eastern side. Westward is 
the rich Meran \ alley and the B'alls of the Ad- 
ige, alias Esch, where the river drops 600 foot. 
The Tom Jasper even couldn't git past such a 
current, but a hydroplane could make it. 

The hauptmann liked my shoein' his horse, 
and sent me to the Toell (divide) and the Falls. 
The valley is like a great orchard of walnuts, 
chestnuts and grape-vines, enclosed by beautiful 
porph3'ry mouutains. It's Spring now — the 
girls of the Tyrol, and the orchards, is bloomin. 

The valley of Meran is thick-settled, dotted 



46 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

by many villages, before the War inhabited 
by happy and prosperous folks, as folk go in 
this-old Europe. 

Meran and Schloss Tyrol, even more than 
Innsbruck, and the Passeyr valley, have been 
regarded as the nucleus from which grew the 
Tyrol, from which it became a Land, Country, 
a political entity. 

RAUCHEN VERBOTENl 



Death or Liberty 

La Libertad es uno de los mas prtciosos 
dones que los cielos dieron a los horn- 
bres * * Pdr ^la libertad, asi come 
por la honra, se puede e debe aventurar 
la vida * * " [wbieh means tliey's 
nawthin like Libert}^, and one ought to 
resk his life fur it.] 

"Cato learnt Greek at eighty." So when I 
come acrost the stormy 'tlantic and the balmy 
Mediterranean, I br^ung along a Spanish exer- 
cise book to rest up on when I git tired sted- 
yin Italian and Chermin: the above is the first 
pernouncin sample in it. 

Spite of the glorious scenery and nice folks, 
I bin frettin right smart to get that key to the 
oats-bin at Borgo back to wheh it b'longs. At 
Innsbruck I planed to 'scape by follerin up the 
river Inn, past Landeck and Nauders into the 
upper Engadine in Switzerland. A lady told 
me the folks up there is pow'ful friendly to 
Austry, onlike so^me of the Sweitzers, around 



48 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

Zurich and Geneva, who stand in with Italy 
and France; besides, that key belongs to Count 
Cadorna. So I didn't go. 

The Engadiue is a valley sixty mile long, 
less 'n a mile wide on the avveridge, part in 
Tyrol, but most in Switzerland, the Inn neerd 
its middle all the way, headed up southwest, 
past places with Chermiii names at one end, 
Italian names (for Sweitzer places) at the other. 

The truth is, endurin this War, all nations 
has been a-doin their best to stand in with the 
(genuine) Republic of the Alps, the Mountain 
Land of Tell. 

[Erratum: — Hofer wan't in command of the 
Tyroleans when they *'wiped the ground'* with 
Marshal Lefebvre at the Pass of the Sachsen- 
klemme, near Sterzing. The monk, Haspinger, 
and Speckbacher, the chamois hunter, were in 
command. Haspinger was a fighting parson. 
Later Brownlow, of Tennessee, preacher, goril- 
la^ Governor and Senator, was called that. 

The English has been corrupt in the western 
Swiss, sendin wounded officers there to board, 
but the Engadine is too cold for such in Winter 
and Spring, but is fine for tuberkylosis, which 
I haven't got. 

Somehow I kaint git no map at Innsbruck 
or Meran, One day a soldier 'bout 77 year old 
come and got me to go to Trafoi to do some 
two days' work. His nose was on- common red 



DEATH OR LIBERTY 49 

fur this kentry, which made me suspicious. 
We hed to hoof it the last twelve mile: horses 
and motors is both infrequent now: wheh used 
to be sixty hitched along that one Meran street 
were commonly only four or five this Spring. 
We left Meran befo' the sun riz, but had to go 
slow, ez how the old hero could only toddle. I 
offered to kerry his gun. He bucked (balked) 
but after four kill 'im meet 'er he let me kerry 
it except in villages and twice we met officers. 
He has two sons and a daughter in U. S. A. 

We lit out plum acrost the Adige valley, i}4 
mile wide here, and the one swampy spot this 
part of the valley, made so by the Tiafoi Bach 
or Brook of Trafoi, which is a 'mighty deep 
swift-runuin brook this time o' year. 

Then the road begins to climb, and climbs 
steady nearly all the way to the summit of the 
Stelvio pass, up 9,045 feet. Like most Italian 
names Stelvio has a Chermin alias, the Stilfser 
Joch. This is claimed to be the highest keridge 
road in the world, or was, some years sence. 
The street in Pasco (Peru^ not Wash.) is 14000 
feet up in the sky, but isn't nawthin like so 
good a road-bed as the Stelvio; all the street 
traffic in Pasco is llama-back. 

[More than a year follerin the above. Kaiser 
Karl, of Austry, in his motor-car, is reported to 
have made the seventeen miles from the Pass 
to Brad, with loi curves (mostly safe ones) in 
eleven minutes, hotly pursued by an Italian 
motorcycle squadron. The road falis 6005 ^^^^ 



S0 BWJB KYK to BHRtil^ 

iii^tliem seventeen miles. He passed Trafoi,' 
Half-way down, and tlirce-qnarters of the drop' 
^t decli n ati on , at over a b undred-mile clip; he 
WkWt captured, but danged near it.] 

The Trafoier Bacli or brook looks like fishinf 
it makes a bigf noise, a regler brawler-^several 
^teep My. I VI mi red the big show of snow 
mountains oiOr to the left: Monte Li vrib, 10,470; 
Nagler Spitze, 10,685; Pleisshorn, 10,312, Nas- 
horn Spilze, 9,442; TrafoiEis wand, 11,246^ 
the black Madatsch Spitze, io;i74; Kristallfen 
Spitzen, 11,300; Ortler, 12,812; Geisterspitze, 
^^)3.S5- Ortler looms huge, but you kaint see 
his highest peak till you git to Franzenhoe, 
six mile above Trafoi, and 2,080 foot higher. 

NearTrafoi, at thei base of Ortler, are Three 
Holy Springs. I meant to visit them, but got 
a ch^nst to git back to Italy. 

Some of the bends in the big road itself is 
dizzy fur me; but the views is fine; my escort 
hadn^t no eyes fur anything but gittiti a drink. 
AtTl-afbi ht got b^ilin, pMntin his gun at ev- 
erybody but me. He goes to sleep on the back 
i^toop. Pnrty soon the hotel lady comes out, 
ties his hands behind him, looks significkant at 
me, and takes his gun into the hotel. At dusk 
he was snorin' good/ and T walks ofFnp the big 
road, keepin in the shadder like ? a U.S.A. 
policeman: 

'^Make tvay for Libery,'* I said 

"Make way for Liberty I *' and fled. 



DEATH OR LIBERTY 51 

Ortler is the biggest and tallest mountain iii 
Austry, and has quite a fine collection around 
him, in the so-called Ortler district. 

Stelvio pass is the boundry between Austria 
and Lombardy, which is Italy. Half a mile 
north thfe southern boundry of Switzerland itb- 
tersects Tyrol's west-side line-fence. 

. I 'How the surveyors made a joggle. Qn 
San Pablo avenue, Oakland, the east and w^$t 
(E.S.E. and W.N.W.) streets miss each other 
in crossing the avenue, by almost half a block. 
Fur instance cdmitigto'rds the bay down 23d 
street, a stranger kaint.tell whether to turn to 
the right or the left at the avenue to get 23d 
west of the avenue. You see those dignified, 
genial Spanish C.E.'s surveyed at one try only 
wot land they wanted to use that same day. If 
somebody found an error, a CE. 'd say: "Fll 
look up the notes, and fix it manana (Spanish 
fur tomorrow.*') The street got built up along 
the old wagon-road that parallel* or meanxjers 
the bayshore (quite a ways inland) befo' manana 
came. (Oakland, Cal.; 44 Oaklands in U.S.A. 
but only one ever under Spain. 

At Franzenhohe, five mile above Trafoi, was 
when I first see the top of Ortler. The moon, 
herself on-visible, shone on his highest peak. 
iGrand. Magnifiqiie! Hermoso! Bello! Schofen ! 
I sneaked past the Italian guard-house at th^ 
summit at midnight, an' dawn was jest breakin 



52 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

when a sentry at the aidge oF Bormio, 2i*mile 
from Trafoi, calls out shrill: 

'^Chi va la?'» 

I walk up to him big as life and bold as 
brass, an' say: 

" Wie geht's ?" 

A absent-mind error. He tells me I'm a spy, 
which scandalizes me, and I pertests vigorous. 
They hurries me to Sondrio, 40-mile in a auto, 
and co't sets at once. 

The finest scenery is on the Tyrol side of the 
Pass, but the best roads is on the Italian side. 

In place of the usual Drum-Head, they hez 
a little table. The jedge advocate he tells em, 
in Italian, I'm a Welsh renegade that's been 
a hangin round Munich fur ten year. I shows 
the key, and tells 'em it belongs to the oats-bin 
at Borgo di Val Sugana. (They's five Borgos 
in Italy and one inHungairy.) I made a closin' 
pathetic spiel in Himerican, begs 'em to telly- 
graft my friend Francesco, Marchese di Miran- 
dola (the Mar-Casey). But when they found 
Schwester's picture, that settled it. In some 
ten minutes a guard tells me I'm to be shot at 
midnight or right soon after that hour. 

It was a disap'intment to me. I'd expected 
to be received with open arms when I got back 
to Italy. My Italian words fail me in critical 



DEATH OR I.IBERTY 53 

junctures, in crises, so to speak. ^'Oli, might 
my grave at home, in Carthage be ! " 

Thus Monica, and died in Italy. 

In '67 a new girl come to Springfield from 
Cincinnati. Hoke Tucker and me was inter- 
doosed to her at a picnic on White river. Hoke 
axes me, 

"Kin ye swim? " 

Fool-like, I says I kin, the girl smiles, and I 
feels like a hero. Next day Hoke says: 

"Let's go swimmin." 

He strikes out plumb acrost the river, but gits 
cramps and goes down. I starts to rescue him, 
but git ox-cited, the current takes me down- 
river, and I goes down twiset. I thinks a 
hull cyclopedy in a sho't time. I recalls thinkn 
cam-like: 

"Hoke's drowaded, and it'll be awful long 
befo' they come to look for us good swimmers. 

Jest then I comes up for the last go-down. I 
see a tree branch at a bend, and grabs it (Ve 
kaint drownd a boy, ez is horned to be shot — 
fur a spy.) 

I feels much the same tonight — so much I 
want to write I kaint fiu^ a place to begin. I 
writ a list of folks ez owes me, addressed to the 
Mar-Casey, long o' this. Don't waste money 



54 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

on a tombstone. I pcrfer to be _ commemorated 
[makes me think of CamembertJ by my literary 
work alone. 

Not marble nor the gilded monuments 
Of princes shall outlive this powTul rime. 

And when I die, I'll leave to you 

My little stock and farm — 

My house, my barn, my little all- 



And all the little chickens in the garden." 
P. S.—Hoke he got out, too. I feel hungry. 



Free in Italy 

It wor jest six minutes past ten by the wrist- 
clock a Ikdy at Udine guv me fur Christmas 
when I hears a key turnin gentle in the do\ I 
rises perlite to see if it's time to go and git 
shot. Instid of the fierce-mustached guard, the 
lovely face of a most beautiful lady, with great, 
deep, dark blue eyes, pertrudes jest inside, and 
a shapely white hand beckons warninly. I has 
a hunch she is the wife of the common Dante. 

** Tachaty ! *' miisical and low. , *'Non parlate 
forty. [Be quiet.] ' 

She slips a box of chocolate chips into my 
hand, and points down a dark and shaded lane, 
'most kivvered with vines and blooms, through 
the grounds in rear of the palazzo. I turns to 
say **Thankye mum,'' but she puts a finger 
acrost her Cupid's bDw of a mouth, ez a sign 
to say it not, douses her lantern and disap- 
pears. About ten rod down the lane or path I 
see the moonlight strike a distandt mouutirig, 
«o I curls up under a tangle of vines and 
briers. Half hour later the' was a 'sturbance 
in the castle or barracks: purty soon a blood- 



56 BLUE EYK TO BERLIN 

hound ccme past down the path, follered by 
three men. I used to expect a bloodhound is 
the fiercest, most dangersome dog they is; but 
couldn't, when I come to look and think one 
over, reconcile his big, dark, mild, liquid eye 
(and droopin ears) with my preconceptions. A 
deerhonnd looks six times ez fierce, and he is 

that fierce, too. And yet a bloodhound kin 

beat all follerin and findin ye, if he isn't in at 
the death, but jest stalls around and weeps, 
while the deerhound chaws ye up. 

From 1864 to 1876, Uncle Tom's Cabin was 
a legitimate drama; from '77 to '99 they kep' 
multiplyin the Topsies and bloodhounds until 
the U. T. C. companies all went broke, and the 
price of bloodhounds come down agin to some- 
thing like the ante bellum price. 

It's the b-l-u-d in bloodhound that skeers. 

This bloodhound didn't stop or notice me 
except to wag his tail as he went past, so I 
know he's a friend of mine, l, At my trial he 
was the only person in the room that looked at 
me friendly. He leads em off to'rds Austry. 

'Bout 2 a. m , all quiet, the moon hid behind 
a mounting, and I lit out, keepin in the shad- 
der all I kin, and usin short-cuts past danger 
p'ints and thro the bresh. 

The blue sky of Italy was turnin to azure 
when my skeert eye see a auto, comin rapid. I 
dodged into the bresh. I felt awful shamed to* 
be hidin that-a-way like a thief. The keer 



FREE IN ITALY 57 

stopt almost opposit the rock I laid behind. 
A big young man in a drab-green overcoat 
hollers loud and cheerful: 

" It is I — Francesco — the Mar-Casey.'' 

T come out sneakin-like, and we whirls oflF 
to Colico on the lake of Como, some fifteen 
mile, in twenty minutes. Sence I rid in the 
airyplane I don't mind, and it beats walkin all 
to smash. I wor 'most three hours comin ten 
mile and a half. At Colico he throws the reins 
to the shover, tells him to phone my escape to 
Sondrio, then take the auto to Milan. 



Francesco and I ketch the early steamboat 
fur Lecoo, *'jest fur the boat-ride," says he. 
He p'ints out Bellagio, at the p'int of the pen- 
insula that splits the lake in two. At Lecco, a 
town busy makin things, we take the train fur 
Monza and Milan. 

Milano has over half a million folks, twiset 
as many as Genoa. Naples hez mo' folks, but 
Milan has the mostest money. That 9-mile- 
long tunnel thro the Alps [St. Gotthard] did 
n't hurt her biznes none: it guv her a pull at 
Zurich and Luzerne an' round theh that stood 
the Allies sence in good stead, and holp a lot 
to make Zurich much the biggest SweitzerCity 
and let the Toy Makers git out theh painted 
Elephants and Tigers and Mountain Sheep to 



58 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

make the Yankee children's Chrismas day. It 
was a right slim Christmas fur Toys last year 
[191 5]. I 'How that's ez how Italy declared 
War agin Austry and not Germany. 

The 12^-mile Simplon Tunnel is also a 
fine thing fur Milan. It taps the valley of the 
Rhone, and lets the metropolis of Lombardy 
into a big trade with France and Switzerland. 
They tell me that most kinds of freight that 
used to go via the St. Gotthard go now by the 
Simplon, which is 40 per cent longer but much 
lower and easier to git to. 

Them Alpine valleys all pours things into 
Milan's lap like spouts from a granary or from 
a threshing machine. 

Edward Everett, in his funeareal oration for 
Dan'l Webster, said: 

''"Your long rows of quarried granite may 
crumble to the dust. The corn fields of yon- 
der villages (p'intin off to'rds Concord and 
Lexington and the Green Mountains and No'th 
Lancaster, vvheh they raise cows and stor3^ 
books and 'mighty little co'n) jest ripenin to 
the sickle — may. like the plains of stricken 
Lombardy, be trodden into bloody sands by the 
maddening wheels of artillery. It was given 
to but a limited number to listen to the living 
voice of Dan'l Webster, and they will never 
isten to it again; but the wise teachings, the 



FREE IN ITALY 59 

grave admonitions and patriotic exhortations 
that fell from his tongue will be garnered and 
treasuied up in the memory of millions." 

Them plains of Lombardy aint stricken 
much, this war. The Austrins kaint git past 
the last line of mountings. 

That 12^-mile Simplon tunnel railway kin 
haul longer trains owin to lower grades, not 
hevvin to climb so high up the mounting to 
git into the tunnel. 

LaScala, the famous oppery house of Milan, 
is the largest theatre in Italy, barrin one in 
Naples. It aint open much late years, xcept 
when a Himerican prima donna subsidizes La 
Scala to git to show how fine she kin sing. 



Byzantinism Abating 

"Francesco,'^ I says,"I learnt a new word sence 

I come to Europe." 

I'd suppose you'd learn several." 

I mean a English word— Byzantinist." 






"What is a Byzantinist ? " 

**A Byzantinist is a Chermin with on-due or 
exaggerated respeck fur authority, or fur pot- 
entates or things established, and reverence, I 
guess, for 'ficials and sich-like. 

*'rd never guess that in the world, or how 
to connect such a cult with Constantinople's 
predecessor, Byzantium." 

*'By the time Byzantium had come to be the 
Capital of the degenerated Roman empire, the 
Roman soldiery and civics [cives] had lost the 
rugged independence of early times and come 
to be classified by posterity as chicken-hearted 
sycophants, or so they would be, later on. The 
bold peasantry that had once peopled the Alban 



BYZANTINISM ABATED 61 

hilltops had no word or name for Byzantinist 
or pussy-footer. 

An ancient name for a modern species of 
servility, Mr. McCann, but why exclusively 
German? 

*' Some German scholar-radical detected the 
likeness and applied the name to what he 
deemed an evil. When a German scholar coins 
a word it is apt to be a long one — he builds it 
on top or jines it onto the end of an old-estab- 
lished word already in good standing. Greeley 
or Webster would of teached Americans a mo' 
condensed, a short word. 

To make a short story long, I should define, 
translate Byzantinism as the antipode of Lazy 
Majesty (lese majeste). Befo' this war Lazy 
Majesty was a crime in the Chermin Empire; 
few of the many cases were prosecuted, how- 
ever. Prosecution didn't pay, and the trial us- 
usually netted a considerable loss of dignity to 
the Kaiser and the Government. In war such 
laws are usual mo' strictly enforced, but the 
Kaiser has been very indulgent to that crowd. 
Mebby he needed the help of every one of 'em. 

"I think it mo' likely he regarded as unsafe 
to stir up the animals much." 

A lady at Meran lent me a paper that says a 
society has been organized at Darmstadt or at 
some town up that wa}^ to suppress or least- 
ways mitigate Byzantinism. They 'How it's got 
clean out of bounds in Doychland. 

A movement like that shows that even the 
Kaiser recognizes that one may have too much 



62 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

of a good thiug. 

*'They don't cal'late to do much till after the 
war — jest git cf&rers elected, and on-finished 
business done, and mebby a barmycide banquet 
at Darmstatt or sumwers. 

The Markis interdoosed me to a Censor at 
Milan, and asked wot is a Byzantinist. The 
Censor didd't know, and put it up to me. I 
splained, and added: "I allers been a Byzantin- 
ist and didn't know it. Ef I do repperzent the 
ablest periodical in the world, I never let on. 
Some cor'spoudents takes too much space fur 
their liitle troubles with authorities and ficials, 
but I never says nawthin — leastways till I gits 
out of their reach. 

'' You didu't 'splain ^yzantinism at Meran ? 

*' I hadn't took time to think about it — too 
much society. 

'*Of course Italy isn't like our ke^ntry. I 
never heered tell of boodlers in Italy. It's dif- 
ficult to evince genuine on-due respeck fur a 
boodler. 

The Censor strokes bis moustache, musing. 

*' One beauty of the Irishmau," I says, is he 
will often do mo' fur glory than fur boodle, in 
a crisis affordin any show fur promotion. 

This is Decoration Day [1916] but it aint 
strictly enforced in Italy. Any'ow I aint been 
decorated yit, but the Mar-Casey 'Hows I'll git 
a order of the first-class fur rescuin Col. Count 
— —who fell wounded under a hail of Austrian 



HEROISM OF McCANN 63 

bullets, cat-ridges and shells that swept the 
on-protected, narrer canyon: They was a open 
patch of about two city blocks the Italians hed 
to cross, without no kivver, and you bet they 
took it on the run, haids down like men facin a 
Ozark sleet storm. 'Bout fifty of the batalyen 
was left on the ground on that little patch. It 
was the 19th c f May, and the OstQjrins had 
druv us fur a couple days percedin. By special 
favor, owin to my Byzantinism, I wor settin 
behind a rock, on the near side of the little 
vale, takin in the scenery, dodgin the splinters 
from rocks and Osterrin shells, an' peepin out 
at the forward-flyin brave. I'd lost my writin 
material, so didnt't write nawthin down, an *hev 
to trust to memory. Off over my left shoulder 
the breeze ruffled old Mount Adamello's snowy 
mane, and the [xi,637] mountain hisself seems 
to look me in the eye and inquire: 

*'Who will resk his life to rescue a shot 
and sufferin brother Human beiu? 

I thinks mebby ez how God saved me in the 
airyplane and in Sondrio's dungeon, maybe 
he'll puH me out now. Anyhow, I'm g[oin on 
sixty-se\en." I waits ^second till it lets up a 
little, then scoot, like we used to light out from 
the barn to the house in a Mizzoorry storm 
of thunder, lightnin — and water. Ws'd run in 
the load or part load of hay, rocin'with the on- 
coniin storm loadin' till the last second. By a 
straggle we get the big barn doors shet inspite 



64 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

of the tornado-breeze. Then the rain comes 
'4n sheets.^' Nothin' to read and no umbrell 
in the barn, no coat and no dry shirt till Sun- 
day. We toss up a pitchfork-handle to see 
who dives under the rain fur readin-matter. I 
finds the Colonel, slings him on my shoulder, 
and gits him somehow behind the rock. He is 
now recoverin' satisfactory. He oifered me his 
best horse, but I declined, bein' ez how I'm an 
airyplanist. 

I was shot in my wrist-clock, skinnin my 
arm up quite a bit. The Colonel got ancther 
bullet in his projectin laig, but didn't seem to 
mind. 

The fight was at the upper end of the Val 
Sarca, which some call four valleys. AUe 
Sarche is the main p'int or metropolis of the 
first valley or j'int (first from its mouth); Ste- 
nico of the second, which runs northwest, then 
north; the last j'int, which runs west, is called 
Val di Genova, and is narrow, wild and purty, 
but badly shot up now. The Osterrins has been 
givin us Hail Columby fur some time, but we 
've retook all the ground they gained. 

Adamello (11,635) is on our left, Pressenella 
11,686 on our right (north); Val Genova in be- 
tween-^forty mile on a bee-line from Trent, 
but most a million miles follerin the roads and 
cart-tracks. Round hyeh is Upper Judycaria 
(Giudicaria): Lower Judycaria is down by Sten- 
ico. We come in via Riva, at the head of Lake 
Garda. Another Riva (comparative unimport- 
ant) is at the head of Lake Como. 



A Chatelaine of Udlne 

When I see that some one had pied or dis- 
trybuted a page of my foryicomin book, I was 
skeert. Kin it be possible that some Eu-rope- 
ian Anarchist groop hez took offense and sent 
a Censor to Himerica? 

I^ra 'stonished so many folks is livin in Eu- 
rope, special befo' they took to killin' ^era ofiF 
this time. Now take Doychland and Italy — - 
YouM be s'prised at the amount of folks, and 
the biof sheer of land that aint arrowble. Some 
parts of Germany is mo' mountainious than 
the Ozark kentry. Both peoples takes to big 
famblys. It stands to reason they got to emi- 
grate or manufacture. And they got to sell 
part of theh factry product abroad. Wheat and 
cattle got to have room. Ye kaint make two 
blades of grass grow wheh they's only space 
for one. That's ez how the mountainious pro- 
vinz of Germany and Ostry is thicker-settled 
than the wheat-growin plains of Hungairy 



66 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

and Proosliy. Fur instance, the Toymakers of 
Germany, Ostry and Switzerland lives almost 
unanimous in mountain-deestricks. They*s 
right s^niart of mountings most round this part 
hyeh of the Isonzo valley, most all the way to 
Goritzy. The Isonzo valley is comparative- 
narrow in spots— I mean in places — and from 
a militia standpoint the Osterins deserves credit 
fur the way they hez placed theh artillery. It*s 
been mo* than a year sence the Italians hez 
bin middlin close to Goritzy. It may be quite 
a spell yet befo' they git in. [Gorizia surren- 
dered in August, 1916, lollowing.J I *llow mebby 
theyM got in quicker if the kentry was leveler. 

It w^as one of the warm latest days of May 
when I come to the tunnel adj'inir cUe Isonzo, 
six or seven mile from Goritzy. They couldnt 
dig this one from both ends, ez how the Ostrin 
shells come too all-fired exact and regler. The 
daylight of early morn was jest peepin' in the 
fur end of our tunnel thro a slit in the false, 
imitation mountain-side the Italians hed riggd 
up, the common-Dante pulled a string and the 
Italian big guns on top of our high hill and 
down stream begun shoot in at the Osterrin 
batteries acrost the river at the rate of Ten 
Thousand Dollars a minute, and we ran out 
thejHnted, armored kivvered bridge, poutooned 
to the last ounce, we hed in the tunnel. The 
sky was that soft, fresh, morning azure one 
sees so seldom away from Italy^ California and 
Medicine Hat, Sixteen or seventeen airyplanes 



CHATELAINE OF UDINE 67 

and two Zepliiis bej^un droppin bums. Every- 
body seemed to be gittin busy. The safest 
place from airyplanes is inside a tunnel. Shell 
after shell dented the bridge^ bum after bum 
spluttered and 'sploded. Quite a few Italians 
fell. On the furder side, the soldiers of Franz 
Josef fit with on-common^bravery, but the bridg 
went majestically, sinuously on, like a Twister 
Cyclone, or a British Tank, or Juggernaut, only 
not so fast as the first, or so lumbering as the 
second, or so religious as the third. Moses git- 
tin acrost the Red sea wan't in it, or Napoleon 
on the bridge at Lodi. 

"Mr. McCann," says the General, " would ye 
like to go to the front end and hitch her to the 
bank ? " 

Our smoke-screen or barrage had settled by 
now already and blotted out the fair light of a 
sunny first of June. The sun had not yet riz 
when T had took a peep through a slit in our 
canvas make-believe mountain, but the tip-tops 
of the hills and mountains east and north stood 
out marvelous-ruddy and clear in the advancin 
dawn, but by now all was changed almost in 
the twinklin of an eye, or in the lapse of a few 
moments, and the valley looked like a London 
pertickler, the river itself was obscured. 

I furgits I'm nootral, and makes a noose in 
the cable and throws it. After that I has a dim 
memory of bein trampled over by a rushin 



68 . BUTE EYE TO BERLIN 

host. I come to proper in a 'field hospital. 

Nawthin but concussion — a bum 'sploded 
cloast to me. 



CHATELAINE OF UDINE 

Udine, June 3, 1916. 
The common-Dante advises me to take a sho^t 
lay-off which I don't need; concussion aint no 
kind of a injury. But I didn't mind stoppin a 
day OT two at Udine, bein as how comin down 
from the Trenteeno I hadn't no time to even 
call on the lady who guv me her wrist-watch in 
memory of her husband, who was great fur his 
liking fur Himericans. He made quite a bit 
of money in New York some years sence. She 
aint a truly Contessa or countess, but looks a 
lot like one, and her Departed left her better 
fixed financially than most of the bona fidy 
countesses. I doctored up her driving horse— 
the only one she had left. She told me today 
she'd 'bout as leave send her sorella (sister) to 
the War, but she guv four horses to the Army. 

I consoled her, p'intin out ez horses hez to 
die sometime ; and her argyment that horses 
hadn't nawthin to do with startin the War, 
and twuz a shame fur them to suffer so, applied 
jest the same to all the men but a few. Her 



CHATELAINE OF IJDINE 69 

husband was one of the first Italians killed in 
this War. She cried fur him, too. 

The perfeshinal veterinarians was all in the 
Army, all-fired bus}^, and a friend of her hus- 
band asked me to look at her horse. I took 
quite a bit of pains with him, and won't tell 
my suspicions — twon't do no good, and he got 
well. I refused money, and she guv me a watch 
of her own, not one of her husband's, which 
shows she hez good taste and knows wot's wot. 
She's bin adoin headquarters work seuce with 
the horse, off and on, mostl}^ on. 

She received me in the libr'y, at her charmin 
villa in the soobnrbs (I furgit the Italian fur 
sooburbs) on a quiet, shaded strada or street — 
one of but a few sich in Udine now She 'pol- 
ogized ez how la sala (the parlor) and most of 
the balance of the house was full of workers or 
War fixins: this room she kep' jest as il marito 
left it — it was his si an pin-ground when he was 
home. She turned and looked out a winder 
fur a little spell, and a tear sneaked on-bidden 
from her eye. She brightened up quick, and 
asked me about New York. I 'llowed that wot 
I didn't know about New York wood most fill a 
Onabridged; but let her know that Oakland 
and Frisky is buildin' ships as fast as they kin 
to replace them as is gittin drownded. 

She was quite a picture, as she stood there, 
in the high lights of early afternoon, the sun- 



70 BLUE EYE TO BERtlN 

shine filtered and softened thro the chestnut 
trees — all in black without a relieving note 
save the rich coloring of her cheek, and the 
fairness of her brow and hand. Raven hair, 
great dark eyes, and dark but scaVely middlin* 
heavy eyebrows. She's about five foot tall and 
medium plump, spite of all her troubles — she 
said the only thing she likes about livin on 
rashins it kep' her weight down. She speaks 
United States good, but chucked in a Italian 
word, now or then, to tease. 

Her husband was sixteen years older, with 
dark blue eyes, she said. 

I had to tell her that her pretty wrist 
watch had been sackerficed in the cause of It- 
alia irridenta. She didn't look sorry. I said 
I had cal'lated on takin' it home to Peggy. I 
'llowed Pd take the lifeless remains to her, any- 
how, en souvenir. 

"She'll prize it all the more fur showin her 
father is a hero," says meh lady, and smiles. 

*^Ii was a good little time-keeper," I says. 

She guv me her hand in goodbye at the do\ 
"I hope you'll come to see me again." 

*'If the Mar-Casey has leisure, we both may.'* 



In and Out- of Aslago 

. Count Cadorna is yankin the troops o£f the 
Isotizo and piling em into the Sette Communi 
and round theh, south of the Val Sug^na, to 
meet the great Austrian offensive. Considerin 
the mountain country surroundin it in all di- 
rections ,the Sette Communi is comparative- 
level and so is fit over often. They aint no 
disguisin the fact our folks has been druv quite 
a ways, owin mostly to mo* pow'ful artillery — 
and mo' of it. The Ostrins advanced upon a 
line thirty miles long, reaching from Rovereto 
on the Adige, northeastward to the cheemas 
[cimas] or precipices that p'int oflf the south 
boundary of Val Sugana. Them 7,000-foot 
cheemas is most as. fierce as the 10,000-foot 
mountings. Two or three sharp, jagged curves 
in the line. On this line the Osterrins had 
gethered up 350,000 men and 2400 cannon, 
a lot of them cannon were big guns, too: they 
made the biggest showin of artillery sence cre- 
ation, outside of France ait this present time. 
They was two big naval guns set up on the 
Cost' Alta, near the left of the thirty-mile 



72 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

line, that throwed shells into Asiago, eleven 
miles southeast, and hit the spot 'most every 
time, or danged close to it. 

I leave for Asiago tomorrow. As I said on 
page II, it is the chief town of the Sette Com- 
muni, a high table-land extending from within 
a few miles of Trent southeast .almost to the 
city of Vicenza. The Tredici (Thirteen) Com- 
muni, southwest of the Seven, similarly reach 
almost to Verona. The Sette comprise seven 
towns and villages— Asiago, Rottero, Roanna, 
Gallio^ Foza, Enego, San Giacomo di Cusiana, 
and the half-brofher communities of Campese, 
Campoloug Otiero, Val Stagna, Val Rovina, 
Vallonaera, Crosera. Asiago lies from six to 
ten miles back from the Brenta. Most tourists 
used to go in from Valstagna, on west bank of 
the Brenta, a two hours walk of five or six miles 
through the beautiul Val Frenzela. Valstagna 
is nearly due cast of Asiago. The former has 
a beautiful site on Brenta's right bank. As a 
a traveler comes dow»- the left bank from the 
narrow gorge of the Brenta, he crosses upon a 
wooden bridge at Valstagna, From here on is 
a road on each side of the river, to Bassano. 

Enego is on the Brenta about ten miles N.E. 
of Asiago. Enego is the next largest town of 
the seven. 

McCrackan reached the Sette Comrnuni by 
walking from Levico to Asiago in eight or nine 



IN AND OUT OF ASIAGO 73 

hours, making a hot and toilsome (midsummer) 
climb of the Duodici range. The Undici and 
Duodici ranges is jest south of Val Sugana, 
paralleling it. Levico is at the western end 
of Sugana Valley, a few mile northeast from 
Trent. His route lay thro' the narrow defile 
of the Val' d'Assa. He described the Sette as 
'*a vast table-land of grass," 3,000 feet above 
the sea, a table-land among the Mountains, 
like some vast clearing in the forest." McC's 
notion of vastuess wan't acquired in Argentine 
or Canada, Montaina or Texas. I guess it's 
not mo' than ten mile acrost each way on the 
average. But among so many perpendicular 
farms [credit Bill Nye] it looks big. They's 
so few good places to fight that the Sette now 
gits mo' than its sheer. Asiago stands out on 
the perary mo' exposed than Cortina, which is 
fifty-five miles northeast by airplane, and a lot 
farther any other way, fur instance dodgin the 
high mountings or foUerin the road. I fears 
they won't be much left of the town at the tail 
end of this war. 

This high petairy is the only good place in 
these parts to practice highpow' artillery. 

The people of the Sette is most interestin. 
Up to recent its folks was considered a kind of 
Chermins livin under the red, white and green 
flag. Long ago these folks spoke onl^^ a kind 
of Chermin resemblin Swabian, and alleged 
scholars of the Sixteenth century identified 
them as descendants of the Cimbri, perhaps of 



74 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

the few survivors of the|bloody defeat inflicted 
on the Cimbri by Caius Marius in the year lOO 
B. C. Up to 1797 the Seven were a small re- 
public under the protection of Venice. Then 
Napoleon gave it to one of his Italian creations 
but in 1815 it went back to Ostry again, and in 
1859 she lost it again to Italy. Of late years, 
a majority of the people speak Italian only — 
a lot of the old settlers have only a lingo about 
as much like Chermin as story-book dialect is 
like truly Tennessee. Besides these, quite a few 
up-to-the-present folks speaks Italian and this 
kind of Chermin, too, 

Baedeker says "in all probability^' these folk 
are "relics'' of the Allemanni who flocked to 
followed Theodoric the Great, the Ostrogoth, 
in 496, after the battle of Tolbiac. Theodoric, 
you know, invaded Italy from Hungairy in 493. 

Asiago is yet, or was, the most important 
town of the Seven. A dummy (steam tram) 
road runs southwest seven or eight mile to the 
town of Arsiero, near the foot of Mt. Cengio, 
around which mountain they's been some hot 
fightin lately. From Arsiero the tramway mo- 
sies along the mountains' aidge S xS.E. to the 
junction Y at Schio. One fork of the Y runs 
N.W. to Torres, the other to Arsiero, which is 
a inland port for the Sette, with a population of 
Bbout 2500. From Schio the line runs south- 
east, then south, to join at Vicenza the main 
line from Brescia and Verona to Udine. 

The dummy from Asiago was used mostly to 



IN AND OUT OF ASIAGO 75 

haul out the broad-brimmed straw hats, butter, 
cheese and milk that are the most volnmirous 
products and exports of the Seven. The butter 
is perduced most in summer, tlie broad-brim 
hats in winter. 



I arrove (June 6) nine days too late to save 
Asiago It's quite vulnerble, so to speak. But 
I see some rattlin-good fightin two or three 
mile south of town. Its high perairy is a fine 
place to show off artillery fire or sich like. The 
Sette is a open perairy or table land several 
mile acrost, with a fringe of woods or forest 
round the aidges and hills and mountings at 
the back all around, with a few narrow, scroogy 
ways out, like the Val d'Assa north, Val Fren- 
zela east and Val d'Astico (through which the 
Arsiero-Schio line runs) at the southwest. 

Ye kin see a shell comin quite a ways, but 
they're harder to dodge than you'd think fur. 
When that smokeless powder was first diskiv- 
vered, I 'llovved it 'd be a great thing, but the 
enemy beats that easy by raisin a smudge, or a 
smoke-barrage. Of course any kind of a bar- 
rier is a barrage. Usual It is an artilleyfire so 
hot that troops kin be lined up and m'neuvered 
behind it. Even in old times, ez fur back as 
Gettysburg, or even Napoleon I., 'twas quite 
common to preface a charge with the artillery 
— all of it. The object mostly was to silence 
the enemy artillery so they couldn't mow down 



76 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

our men so soon and fast. It was Napoleon's 
accustomed formula (He was trained for the 
artillery) and next he would send in to win the 
day *'the bravest of the brave," Ney or Murat: 

"Where the broken line, enlarging, 
Fell or fled across the plain, 
There be sure was Murat charging— 
There he ne'er will charge again. 

This war I cal'late is the first time they have 
used gun-fire for barrage or concealment: they 
found it paid to shoot so fast the enemy would 
have to keep his head kivvered up out of sight 
and dassn't dare to look or peep or even lift his 
face out one tiny bit. 

Folks of the Sette is ac-colorcd to smoke. 
Fur ages their houses hez hed no chimblys — a 
hole in one side and a sooty outside wall, soovy- 
nears of the hated and burdenin chimbly-tax ! 

Britain had a window and chimbly-tax fur a 
long spell, but Free Himerica never ! 

Never before did we come to believe that we 
could afford to use so much ammunition. 

TheAsiago-MonteCengio dummy line exports 
broad'brimmed hats and dairy products. It is 
not operatin' now. Asiago, like Cortina, is fine 
to see the mountings from, but teetotally com- 
manded from too many of them. 

The Italians got out of Asiago May 28 ; the 
shells and bums was comin' too thick. They 
'llowed the Osterrins wouldn't spile the town 



IN AND OUT OF ASIAGO 77 

ef they'd move od. But Ostry got too sassy to 
oncet, and we tinned on 'em two mile out. 

June 6 the Ostrins made a Pickett's charge 
aginst the barrages, etc., on the slopes of Mt. 
Lemerle, jest south of Asiago, It suggested a 
steeper Gettysburg. By the 8th they gained 
the summit. But the Italians, unable to hold 
the summit, still clung to and held the south- 
west corner of the mountain, and they never 
gave it up. The highest position aint allers 
the strongest. That was high-water mark fur 
Austry at the southeast of the Seven. At Mt. 
Ciove and Pria Fora, a few mile farther west, 
they got a litUe deeper into Italy. 

June i8, the anniversary of Waterloo, the 
enemy made its last attack-attempt on Lemerle 

[London Times history says: *'June 15th the 
Austrian commander, after the capture of Mt. 
Lemerle, addressed his troops: **Only three 
more mountains, and we will be on the open 
road to Milan. 

But Lemerle was the last^one he got— and 
not quite all of Lemerle. 

Such was the endin of a most determined, 
desprit and devoted campaign. The massed 
Austrian onset was on-common heavy. Some 
of the first fierce battles were fought at Zugna 
Torta, two mile south of Roveredo and about 
seventeen south of Trent. From theh heavier 
enemy masses pushed the Italians acrost the 
Posina valley to Monte Pasubio, ten mile from 
Roveredo southeast by airyplane. Then the 



7% BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

enemy zig-zagged northeast along the mountin 
range almost to the pecipices bounding the 
Val Sugana, then swung southeasterly toward 
Asiago. The enemy from that side and from 
Asiago attacted Mt. Cengio near Arsiero the 
day before I come: when I got to the mounting, 
all the Italians had been druv off except one 
Sardinian brigade thet hung onto the south 
slope of Cengio after the rezidoo had hiked 
acrost the Val Cannel-yeea [Canaglia]. I 
sizes up the Sardinians^ looks over the field 
and exclaims: 

*^ Remember Chickamoggy ! ^* 

And the Sardinians set the firm lines of theh 
months and hung on like Grim Death. 

That night we got out much the same as 
Thomas did, *'in good order." The brigade 
lost half its men. One batch held the south- 
west corner of the mounting, above Schiri. 

I 'How some Military Critics got on-popular 
with the Army by gittin too bad skeert at the 
Ostrin advance. I cal'late they fo'ced Cadorna's 
hand so he bed to let up on the Isouzo. Some 
Allies is like your whist pardner— adanged site 
mo* anxious about yo' play than to keep out of 
raakin errors thehselves. 

Yeste'day I entered Asiago in triumph— on 
foot — theawithdrawin Ostrlnsfi^htin from street 
to street. She is shot up baa and ketched 
fire in places. The enem^' btldAsiagoa month. 



McCann on Furlough 

Genoa, July 4, 1916. 
When I see the Mar-Casey di Mirandola at 
headquarters in the Sette Communi, he'd re- 
ceived recent a letter from Sallie Yates ez how 
Bill Yates 'Hows to leave Au^. 5 on a Trip to 
Arkinsaw, and hopes I git home in time to go 
'long. Francesco and me talked it over, and 
decided I could depart at this time without 
serious injury to the Army and the Campaign 
— Looks like as if the conquest of the Trent- 
ino would all have to be done all over again. 
We aint quite so neerd to Trent as when I 
first come last Autum. But I sticks to my 
first prophesyin. When the Chermins was a- 
sweepin thro Belgium, and on down as fur 
as the Marne, I says to a then unknown spy: 

^'That's a wonderful Army, but it kaint 
win in the end.'* 

As Byron and Dickens says, the deep and 
dark blue ocean rolls 'round all the world, and 



80 .BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

command of the sea is party probble to to be 
the last word in a fight to a finish. "I kaint git 
ont ! " was the cry of the Starlin" — also of the 
neutral. 

Now look at Goritzy. It's only twenty-two 
mile (by rail) from Udine, but weVe been mo' 
than a year on the way. We haven't traveled 
much by rail, however. 'Taint the distance so 
much as the folks, etc , you meet on root. But 
Goritzy is doomed. 

That last a. m. Francesco hands me a sweepin 
letter to the police, etc., countersigned by the 
Commander-in-chief hisself Then he sets down 
and composys the follerin, which he hands over 
with a grin: 

Excelleniia the Dook of Mirandola: 

Revered ancestor — You will greatly oblige 
me if you will kindly refrain from making any 
strange eccos or noises roundabout the Castle 
endurin the visit of my friend, McCann. He is 
pow'ful skeert of ghostez. 

—Francesco di Mirandola. 

If ever you go to Modena, 
Stop at a palace near the Reggio gate, 
Dwelt in of old by one of the Donati, 
And look a while upon a picture there. 

'Tis of a lady in her earliest youth 

Her name Ginevra. 
A banker, retired, writ that Mebby that's 



McCANN ON FURLOUGH 81 

why I kin recall that much. We used to read 
about Ginevra at school, one of the sorr'fulest 
tales ever wrote, probly true, of a mischivous 
but rich and lovely lady who hid in a chist in 
the garret on her wedding day, to tease the 
bridegroom and the guests. On-known to her 
it had a spring-lock, and they all couldn't find 
her. Bankers aie often good writers, but it is 
mainly in hand-writin, not poetry. I allers 
did admire bankers, special the accommodatin 
kind, usual on-pretentious, too. 

[McCann quotes Rogers brokenly. S^mUel 
Rogers, retired banker and author, gave so 
many good dinners that the Jiterati;, the people 
who ate 'em, spoke patronizingly^ of his verse. 
His sarcasms alienated the critics he fed at his 
table. "Description is my forte": so Byron 
wrote. In description and narrative, in words 
and measures fastidiously chosen, Rogers also 
surpassed many an impecunious versifier.] 

I come straight thro' Genoa, but got off the 
keers at Modena, which is quite a city, but is 
beginning to show its age: not so lively nor so 
modern as Udine. 

Northeast by rail some twenty miles is Mir- 
andola. 

(Uncle Blair has no accent-marked a^s ore's 
or other letters in his type, so he v/rit two po- 
ems to show folks how to^pernounce Miraudola 



8? BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

—at first he s'posed it was like as follers: 

A fellow who knew every learning bit of 

school or schola 
Was Pico della (tum-tum) Mirandola. 

But that isn*t kerect. It rhymes this way: 

Of all the castled ruins I have saw 

The shabbiest housed old Duke Mirandola. 

Mirandola is wheh Francesco's fambly come 
from. Uncle Blair looked up its poppylation 
to 'splain one of my letters. In haste, he got 
the township or commune, which includes the 
town, instid of the town, then stuck on 3,000 
mo' to 'How fur wot it's probly growed sence the 
census, which was too much, and his total was 
fur too high. Still,its beauty of situation appeals 
to a almos'-come-to-be connoisseur like me. 

[Population Asiago 2349, commune 6128; 
*.' Arsiero 3500, commune 482 i.j 

The castle ot Mirandola has been short a truly 
livin Dook fur a long spell: the Sixteenth cen- 
tury put them ont of business, was a hard year 
fur them. Some of them knew so danged 
much mo' than the Pope that he put them on 
the List Expurgatorius, ez how they made His 
Holiness feel on-easy, like the Kronprinz when 
Hindenburg comes down the line on pay-raid. 
And yet they was too poetical fur the Presby- 
terians, and too full of the gray old Greek and 



McCANN ON FURLOUGH 83 

Roman myths to soot the Lutherans— sort of 
Swinburne-Rosetti Blessed-Damozels. Twa'nt 
no wonder they fell between two armies. Our 
Francesco aint a bit like that. He knows sev- 
verl languages, but never rubs em in. Probly 
he^s read about his ancestors. Emprer of Os- 
try abolished the last Duke of Mirandola 1710 

Pico della di Mirandola was the Holy 

Prodigy, Admirable Crichton - Macaulay Best 
Speller and Catechism Champion of the 15th 
century. At the age of only 23, he issued, at 
Rome^ a challenge to the scholastic world of 
Europe and undiscovered U.S.A. to meet him 
in a championship discussion of ^*Everything 
that Can be Known'^ (and Some Things Besides) 
Voltaire remarked almost 300 years afterward. 
He submitted no less that 900 separate theses 
for discussion, but I bet he left out the airy- 
plane. At the last moment the Pope prohibited 
the bout. There are beautiful verses about him 
in French by Gerard de Nerval, done into En- 
glirh by Andrew Lang. He lacked the Sense 
of Humor, though hardly any other mental 
attribnte. The mild climate of Italy got away 
with Pico at the early age of thirty-one in 1494 

Genoa has about half as many folks as Milan 
—and yet it is Italy's greatest seaport, surpass- 
ing Naples in net proceeds. When I was a lad 
I s 'posed big cities tapered off gradual. I was 
surprised awful when for the first time I was on 
a train that emerged from thick-settled Chicago 



Si BIvUE EYE TO BERLIN 

and in five minutes was loozin itself on the bori- 
zonless perairy. One might expect they wonld 
build both cities where Geneva is, but Milan 
kep' on growin. Two great tunnels thro the 
Alps are hpudy by, and brakemen got into the 
habit, as the train slowed up in the poorer dis- 
tricts of Milan, of throwin off a piece or hunk 
of coab for some poor fambly. By and by the 
poor fambly'd start a factry, and manufacturin 
in transit, and terminal rates, was established. 
Besides, the hills of Genoa is middlin steep. 

The Genoese have allers been sui generis, so 
to speak, different to them of any other city, 
doin' bizness off its own bat, like the free cities 
of old times, Hamburg and the like. Milan 
was long an Austrian possession, and kept the 
money at home, as fur as possible, a habit that 
lasted after she jined united Italy. Also Genoa 
stuck to her old sea-farin ways. The Army is 
abatin some this cosmopolitanism. 

I writ once of the number of Borgos in Ital}^ 
I see two mo' in Genoa— Borgo Pi la and Borgo 
Insciati. The last-named seems to be in socie- 
ty. One might say this kind of borgo is a 
soob-urb or Borough like The Bronx or Man- 
hattan or Queens. 

Genoa faces mostly south, which keeps it 
nice and warm at this time of year. On such 
warm, moonlit nights Columbus, clothed only 
with his enthusiasm, Columbus used to lie in 



McCANN ON FURLOUGH 85 

bed with his head part-way out the window, in 
one of the many high-up houses, and fancy he 
could see off southwest 

Far as the Pillars which Alcides reared 

at the Straits of Gibraltar, and figger wot was 
acrost the Atlantic beyondr. 

One of the finest buildins is Palazzo Doria, 
like as not named in honor of the fambly of 
Francesco Doria, the young man who w^as to 
marry Ginevra. 

Weary of his life, Francesco flew to Venice, 
Flung it away in battle with the Turk 

Near-by in city blocks, but the other end of the 
scale, is the massive Albergo di Poveri. 

Genoa has a great art collection, but Peggy 
isn't in our party, and steam is up for U.S.A. 

Where'er I roam, whatever wars to see, 
My heart, untraveled, fondly turns to thee. 

I was a guest of a widowed cousin of the Mar *- 
Casey, thirty-one "year old, chick [chic] and 
fascinatin'. Although she is a native Genoese, 
her hair is the neerdest flaxen I have seen in 
Italy, or sun-kissed lemon color you might call 
it, with big, light-blue eyes. She is exceeding 
well "posted," as Bill Yates M say, in what the 



86 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

Foe used to call World-Polit-tic. I jedge her 
her to be also a connoisseur of art and antique 
literature and archaeology. She keeps (basks 
in the approval of) a stately English butler. 
He told me she had wrote a book, **Genoa of 
the Antediluvians,'* that had been crowned by 
the French Academy. I thought the Forty 
Immortal had quit the practice. 

She flitted past the pictures with me today; 
says she likes ALL Americans, but I hope not. 



A Sea 'Scape 

Abont 4:30 my chaperon druv me to U. S. A. 
consulate, where I shook her. The vice consul 
greeted me with mo' enthusiasm than I calcu- 
lated. ''Jest the man I want to see. Won't 
you come into the parlor and set down fur a 
few minutes?" He hands me a New York paper 
that tells about a hull fambly bein killed in an 
autpmobeel, and that reminds me I has a new 
perfeshin to learn next summer, shuvverin. A 
English Major coaies in and says his sister is 
sailin by the night boat for Northampton, 
Mass., to visit friend. She has no companions 
but a little Swiss maid, and the only English- 
speakin passenger is me. 

I 'Hows ez how I'ze learnt to be a avvytor 
a spy and a sojer, but sailorin is my weak soot. 

'^She's going to America to recooperate;had a 
job pulling me out, but don't let her talk of me 
— the little Genevese kin teach you bothFrench 
and you can tell Alice about America. 

*'I aint been to many young-lady places. I 



S8 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

never summered at Lenox. 

'^She^s partial to the wild and woolly — in fic- 
tion- — deeds of dairin, you know.'^ 

He interdoosed me to Alice on the boat^ — 
a tall, fair, well muscled girl, mebby a few 
months older or younger than Peggy, with light 
blue, blazzy eyes. 

The Major had got shot thro the Inngs (or 
lights, we used to -call 'em) and she'd worked 
hard resuscitatin him. I guessed Alice's figger 
was fine, but 'twas only a guess, owin' to her 
long, loose-fittin, purplish-brown overcoat, and 
she had good pearls in her ears, and di'mons in 
the comb that held up her back hair at dinner 
It was her pull, I 'How, that got me a seat at 
4;he Captain's table, where I made a onmistaka- 
ble hit. His voice minded me of old Henry 
Clay Banabee, tho I cal'late he'd swallered mo' 
weather and less bronchial medicine. Every 
danged one of the Captain's Table spoke En- 
glish for perlite to Alice. 

Alice asked the Captain ez how about the 
submarine danger, and he passed it up to me 
fur fun, bein ez how I had never see a subma- 
rine. Then I told 'em about a farmer's horses 
that 'd start to run every time they heered the 
keers whistle. One time his wife got spilt out 
and hurt and he traded off the team for a pair 
that had been brought up in a roundhouse. It 
was about a month later, at a grade crossin, the 
keers whistled, the horses never lifts an ear, too 
tame to run, the en-jine hits the wagon, killin' 
the hull fambly, includin a year-old baby. Ba- 



McCANN ON FURLOUGH 89 

bies usual gits away on-hurt. 

After dinner we lounges on deck. Marie (I 
wonder if they're all named Marie) is half as 
tall as Alice. The moon is in her first quarter, 
already beginnin to think of retirin fur the 
night. On our port quarter, dim and far, are 
the lights of Corsica. I observe how the pale 
fuzzy moonlight matches Alice^s cheek, like 
ice cream melting in cream, and approve the 
slender aristocrat nose, tilted the tiniest trifle, 
reassuringly low at the bridge. 

Hours pass idly. I tells of The Betrothed, 
Salzburg, Schwester, Innsbruck, Meran, New 
York and Boston, 

After a hot day» the cool, fragrant air, laden 
with the odors of Riviera roses and the gardens 
bordering the sea, is delicious. In a scant half 
hour, the moon will disappear. Twice hasAlice 
spoken of retiring, and lingered. In the same 
instant, Alice clutched me arm, and I hears a 
^splosion on the side of the boat away from the 
settin moon. In a second the crew got busy, 
the waiters passin out life-belts, a mate on the 
bridge, the Captain bossin the deck. In less 'n 
six minutes everybody is in the boats. Ours 
was the only one that upset in launchin, and 
we all got spilt into the Mediterranean. I 
hears Alice's voice close to my ear,"Swim clear 
if ye kin !'* She wor a travlin as easy as Hero's 
Lcander or Annette Kellerman, one hand aholt 
of the little mountain-maid's back-strap, pro- 
pellin' with the other. The mate comes over- 
board with a life-buoy and tells me to take holt. 



90 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

I thinks: *'If Hoke Tucker could see me now !" 
Jee ! Two minutes later I hears Alice agin : 
*' The Captain's on the bridge ! " I looks, the 
ship's stern was in the air, the foc'sle under 
water. The Captain, one foot braced aslant, 
was sizing up the lifeboats.* 

"'Down she goes by the head," says the mate 
~r-and in a swirl and with a hiss and roar of 
steam, the big ship plunged headfu'st to Davy 
Jones's drydock. 

It growed darker, the moon's last feeble rays 
was fadin; U 6i was already amongst us, not 
takin nobody on board. All to oncet I feels a 
lassso under my arms, and I was yanked aboard 
the submarine, whose deck was all above water 
and the crew on deck. The man at the other 
end of the lass-so was the common-Dante, from 
St Looey, Seattle, Mt. Blanc, Salzburg, and all 
over, now commander-in-chief of U-6i. I fiir- 
gits discipline, and my wetness, and blurts out, 
astonished-like: 

**Wheh did you learn submareenin and navi^ 
gatin?'' Then I thinks, *'No trip with Bill 
Yates, but back to Ostry fur me !" However, 
he don't let on I was a 'scaped prizner, on the 
contrairy he pertends he last see me in St. 
Lopey— and I see the p'int fur a wonder. He 

IThis incident was, first put in type June 9, 1917, published June 
14 in Tht Jury. June 15 the author saw first, iuN Y. Times of loth 
June the extremely similar sinking of ^the French SS. Sontay. 



McCANN ON FURLOUGH 91 

never told me he'd cowboyed two year in 
Montaina. 

Soon after sun-up a Spanish steamer come 
along, out of MarrsaiP. Common-Dante huv 
her to, sends ns all aboard, and orders us into 
Port Mahon, and come part- way with us, "ez a 
guaranty of good faith." 

In 1865, the home-come soldiers guv a play 
at Fort Madison. Uncle Blair's big (small but 
growed-up) brother was a Major General (in 
the play) bein ez how he wan't tall enough fur 
a private. All a Major General in a play has 
to do is to wear a slouch hat and shoulder-- 
straps, and be keerful to not git a-straddle of 
his sword. They don't dast make Generals talk 
much.Uncle Blair w^as only 4 years old (goin-on 
5) a infant prodigy for memoriziubut not wuth 
the powder to blow him up with fur speakin 
pieces; and so they put Blair on fur a recita- 
tion entr'acte like Jessie Bartiett Davis used to 
sing ^^Promise Me" in Robbin' Hood. Blair 
was a teetotal failure, skeert wor^e than any of 
the other actors had been at Perairy Grove: he 
started off 

Old Ironsides at anchor lay 

In the harbor of Mahon 

■ '^ 

And broke down as often as a second-hand 
motor keen 

• When We entered the harbor of Port Mahon 



92 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

(one of the finest in Europe but not the busiest 
owin to lack of tributary kentry) Alice looked 
twiset as healththy as she did at Genoa. 

Port MahoUj island of Minorca, is a city of 
about twenty thousand folks. Precedin the 
Frinch and Indian war of 1756-63 she was a 
Britisli possession. In 1756 the Spaniards at- 
tackled and besieged her. Admiral Byng was 
sent to relieve Minorca. He looked the Span- 
ish fleet over keerful, and went away. London 
papers made a awful holler, was full of ironical 
rhymes. 

Oh, that in the rolling ocean 

I had cast them with disdain^ 
And obeyed my heart's warm motion 
To have quelled the pride of Spain. 

—Quoted by Schmucker. 

Wben Admiral Byng got back to London he 
was tried and took out and shot^ When folks 
took time to cool off, they llowed Byng had 
been sackerficed to popular clamor, and was 
only guilty of a error of jedgment, speshil as 
Spain guv back Minorca at the peace. Spain, 
with France and Himerica for allies, re-took 
Minorca in 1782. 

And yet, ever sence, when a British Admiral 
makes a error of jedgment, it's been in the 
direction of fightin. 



I said Mahon has one of the finest Harbor* 



McCANN ON FURLOUGH 93 

in Europe, three miles deep. It would be a 
great seaport if it had the country back of it, 
but the land is owned by a few men, who rent 
it to peasants who don^t perdoose much. 

The name Mahon, I ^llow is a soov-near of 
the Irish conquest of Spain, which was kerried 
forward like the Irish conquest of Aimerica as 
took place 1850-85. In Spain, as in Himerica, 
the Irish took to politics right soon. Famous 
Gen. 0*Donnell,was right bower for two Queens 
— for Isabella II. and her mother and Regent- 
predecessor, Queen Christina. He was practic 
ally Dictator for quite a spell. He was a de-- 
scendant of a Limerick exile of 1691. Most 
of them exiles went with Sarsfield to France, 
but The (1691) O'Dontiell believed that the 
French ate frogs' (legs), and as late as 1685 
O'Donnell's grandfather was still wearing a 
souvenir of the Invincible Armada, a beautiful 
eipbroidered jacket that had been washed 
ashore (a grandee in it) a hundred years be- 
fore. Gen. O'Donnell couldn't say a word of 
Irish, and knowed only nine English words— 
^*I am happy to meet you '' and three En- 
glish cusswords. He was a corker, and sure 
inherited thelrish versatility, bein ez how he 
wor a statesman and soldier. Mahon was oc* 
cupied by the English so long that the jargon 
is still spoke. **Damn'' and "Bloody" . are 
the English words I heered oftenest resound 
around the docks. 

Isabella made Gen. O'Donnell a Dook, Dook 
of Tetuan, and he holp her to lose her moral 



94 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

reputation, It was partly lost before. After lier 
exile in 1869, be lived as one of ber entourage 
in Paris, and ber busband, an on-popular .little 
Prince (wbile sbe was Queen folks called bim • 
Tbe King, once in a wbile, for fun,) elsewbere. 
Spaniards are purty pertickler, and tbe scandal 
irritated *em; but no one blames a man, least- 
ways a Irisbman, in tbe case of a Queen, more 
especial a regnant Queen. 

One nigbt at tbe Britisb consul's we played 
ole.fasbioned wbist, without no Bridge, with 
Alice and tbe consul agin me and tbe most 
beautiful lady in Spain: grace in ber every 
motion, tbrills in tbe touch of ber band; gay, 
and brimming with laughter, tben archly sad; 
a face and form that would delight and despair 
Valasquez. Her breath is like a early morning 
zephyr from dewy roses in mid-summer. Her 
whist When sbe rests soft, dark ey€s 

on you, it means: *^Have you the biggest 
trump?'' Her husband Is suspected of being 
in tbe pay of H. B. M., and is absent in Spain 
-T-or Afriky. 

I showed the ladies the new creases in my 
pants. ■ 

A wireless to the British consul gave Alice 
carty blanch^ and tbe common-Dante guv me 
a requets or order on tbe German consul for 
a suit of clothes; bnt the consul advised me to 
get it in Barcelona, wheh stocks are bigger; 



McCANN ON FURLOUGH 95 

ez how a wealthy gentleman wired he was a- 
comin to- take me and Alice to the big city 
to catch a boat to America. He arrove Friday, 
The consults own tailor ironed out my suit, 
while I wore his pyjamas. 

I didn^t lose my money like some of the 
passengers. 

We arrove in Barcelona yesterday. It is oue 
of the finest cities I ever see, but they tell me 
they's lots of annerkis. A cylopedy says the 
harbor (not crowded nowadays) is three times 
bigger^n both of Marsail's but not so big as 
Genoa's. Tt kivvers 346 acres— big enough 
fpr two farms if the water was drained off and 
t\\Q salt evaporated. Barcelona is Spain's 
big^gest shippin' p'int, doin $150,000,000 trade 
with 0!ver-seas, sellin a half more 'n she buys. 
She hez about 600,000 people— half outside the 
city limits. Barcelona reckons the rezidoo of 
Spain Mossbacked, Spain gits back by sayin: 

"You're too big and on-rooly now/' 

And keepin 'er split up; 

Barcelona has her Piedmont^ too, roostin' 
high^ with millionaires fur night watchmen; 
several Berkeleys, wheh retired sea lords and 
literati live, one big 'varsity, aud three Emery 
57illes, 

. ' to show 

Tne -very place where wicked people go. 
:Spain has one largos city, Madrid, 440 miles 



96 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

by rail, 310 by airy plane. Barcelona has one of 
the finest climates of the world, mean (not 
ornery) temperature 61, and is about due east 
of Yreka; Evanston, Wyoming; Lincoln, New- 
brasky; DesMoines, Iowa; Chicago, Illinois; 
Cleveland, Ohio, and New "Vork, N. Y. Some 
of these places have a climate mo' severe, even 
if Barcelona does git a touch of the mistral off 
the Pyrenees oncet in a while in winter. 

The Rambla, a fine street, runs fur three- 
quarters of a mile from the noble statue and 
monument of Columbus, with a double row of 
shade trees. Barcelona is another Crescent City, 
and fronts its bay in a grand semi-circle. 

When the Earl of Peterborough was Lord 
Monmouth, he had a personal moral and im- 
moral record bad enough to beat him even for 
Chief of P'leece. It a lady of any rank wot- 
ever took his eye, at Court, in London or the 
Provinz, he'd set out same evening and kidnap 
her hisself. He gambled, too, and most every- 
thing. He didn't change his name to beat his 
record, but his uncle, the Earl, died and left 
him a lot of money. Marlborough wan't jeal- 
ous after Blenheim, and sent Peterborough to 
conquer Spain fur Charles of Austria against 
Philp of France, the first Bourbon King of 
Spain, ez how the old fambly of Philip Second 
and Charles Fifth and Isabella of Castile had 
run out. That's wot the war was about. 

Montjuich was an impregnable fortress jejst 



• McCANN ON FURLOUGH 97 

west of Barcelona,' and set on a hill. The hill 
is still there, to corobberate histry, bein ez how 
Henry Ford is quoted as savin that histry is 
all bunk. The Prince of Hesse, who was along 
with a batch of Hessians, had made a sneerin 
remark about the English, probly to the effect 
that they perfer to hire their fightin' done. So 
Peterborough goes to him and Hows he intends 
to make a night attack on Montjuich whether 
he jines in or not. Put up to him that^a-way, 
the Prince goes along and gits killed. At the 
head of only 1,500 British and Irish, My Lord 
Peterborough stormed the fort; oncet, when he 
was off linin up the Dutch and Chermins, the 
so fur victorious English got in a panic, and 
was gittin licked. Peterborough he comes 
back like Sheridan and swept everything, fort 
and hill and all. Montjuich fallen, Barcelona 
had to s'render. 

Folks in England made mo^ fuss over Peter- 
borough's victry than over Blenheim, or most 
as much — it was so spectacular— if Parliament 
didn't vote him no great fortune like it done 
Marlborough, ez how Parliament knowed that 
Marlborough would save his money keerful 
and improve his land, while Peterborough 'd 
spend right off the reel.- Besides too many M. 
P.'s had it in for Peterboroughpersonally. The 
hoi polloi of London— the City masses — ^whose 
wives had never met His Lordship, went wild 
at the great news. 

Blenheim was fit 1704, Montjuich 1705. 



98 . BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

I wish I could write up an attack like that 
in this war. But they won't usual let me git 
within forty rod of the firin line, 

I bet if My Lord Peterborough had been in 
Sir Dooglas Haig's or Admiral Beatty's place 
that inside of a week his enemies *d had him 
jest where they wanted him—inside a loonatic 
asylum. Keepin' track of so many men and 
guns, of friend and foe, by telephone, telegraph 
or horse and cart, would of razzled him. Sir 
Dooglas or Admiral Beatty, special the latter, 
would of gone like our Admiral Sampson if ary 
one of them had been built Physical like him. 
Jedgiu from Beatty^s face and figger, I Mlow a 
bulldog 'd be as easy to kill with worry. 

Kipling^s man who went crazy watchin* the 
currents and tryin* to keep *em from runnin 
crooked, wouldn't do for Commander-in Chief 
these timeSc 

Fact is, this is a wrist«watch war. I kaint 
sense wot they 'd of done without the needed 
indeed ondispensable wrist=clocko The lines is 
so long everything hed to be done like as if 
the officers was railroad conductors, on time,, 
and theh watches hed to jibe and be kep kerect 
and no delays tolerated. In our on-civil and 
precedin wars, often, orders woul go out the 
night before for all divisions to attack at sun- 
up. One division wouldn't be ready till after 
eleven, hed forgot its artillery or something, or 



McCANN ON FURLOUGH W 

they was mud in the powder or a cow on the 
track. Sometimes it was towVds evening be- 
fore an attack was delivered. 

They aint much of that sort of thing in this 
war. "Time is the essence of this order " is 
printed at the top of every order-blank. 

What most diskerridges the folks at home, 
and special the book agents is they aint no 
chanst fur hero-worship. We hear of a Lieu- 
tenant General bein' permoted to Field Mar- 
shal but don^t hear wot he done. Did he say: 

Charge, Chester, charge ! 

Strike, till the last armed foe expires ! 

A little more grape, Capt. Bragg ! 

Up, Guards, and at them ! 

McPherson and revenge ! 

No, not in a telephone-telegraph war ! The 
Marshal gets his remarks printed, and a million 
copies distributed to the Army, and seventy 
thousand or so for Paris. 

True, Grant set in his tent and writ: 

No terms but unconditional surrender — — 
I propose to fight it out on this line- 



And so did they propose who fit before Verdun 

Barcelona was part of the Cat=a-lan kingdom 
up to 1 137, when their suvrin got married to 
the Princess of Aragon and took Catalonia 
along for dowry— I mean alimony. 

The French had her (Catalonia) a while, but 



100 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

Spain got her again in 1652. The Catalan is a 
sonorous speech like Spanish, with streaks of 
old French, "sweet beyond compare/' from over 
the long-ago green Pyrenees. 

The owner of our yatchit interdoosed me to 
his clever and beautiful daughter Pepita. I was 
ramblin with her today on the Rambla to give 
the old grandee leisure and an undisturbed si- 
esta. Pepita has the step of a thoroughbred, 
the footfall of a fairy treading on daisies and 
clover, the eye of a wild gazelle, and a voice 
low and rich, like Peggy's mother; twenty, and 
wears good clothes. It was Sunday afternoon, 
and the showin' of clothes and folks was over- 
powerin. 

Spain is the most nootral of nootrals, which 
makes it a hot question. The King is person- 
ally popular, is surer to hold bis job than most 
Kings 'd be in his place. 

Pepita showed me a *Tunch'' in which the 
editor thanks the King for wot he personally 
done in a pathetic case of a English prisoner in 
Germany. 

Barcelona was named in honor of Halilcar 
Barca? You remember Hamilcar? He was a 
Phoenician, but some of his folks settled later 
in Carthage. 

I asked my beautiful guide if "La Boca de 
Pepita'' was wrote about her? 

^*Do I seem as old as that ? " 



Farewell, Europe 

Cadiz, Surrounded by the Sea, July 9,1916. 

Some one long ago pointed out that the Spanish 
runs more to consonants than other so-called 
Latin or Romance languages. This tends to 
make folks mo' taciturn and reserved, ez how 
it takes mo' effort to pernounce consonants. 
Spaniards writes fewer books, too, 'most all of 
them decent; npt much obscene literature in 
Spain. Chary of speech leads to chary of 
writin. - 

Carthage hed a lot to do with settlin Spain- 
Early Carthaginians was probly a rugged folk* 
Hasdrubal (All pegples, from Phoenicians to 
English, has had trouble with. the Letter H], 
Hannibal's little brother, founded Carthagena 
in 228 or 221 B. C. The bay minded him of 
his ole home town, so he named the place Nevv 
Carthage. Rome, N. V., wan't named by Ital- 
ians, but by a man who hed jest read Plutarch. 
Said man must of been quite a potentate or 



102 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

a big land-owner. He named a bunch of near 
together towns in Central New York as Toilers: 
Pompey, Cato, Cicero, Syracuse, Rome, etc. 
Pompty, Cato and Cicero kilt theh towns 'most 
dead, but Rome and Syracuse growed purty 
good. [Seems to me Brutus has a town theh 
named for him; and Cassius, too.] Carthage, 
111., is some punkins of a city, and Athens and 
Rome, Georgia, are beautiful places. 

They's another Cartagena in South America 
(Colombia). The h is silent. The word cart- 
age is the outrageous charge they used to col- 
lect for haulin things up from the wharf or 
warf at Carthage about 303 B. C. 

Carthagena, Spain, has growed to 41,000 in 
a 144 years; has a fine harbor and fairly fine 
climate, and is Spain's leadin' naval station. 
Spanish-American war guv its business a black 
eye. but gittin rid of Cuby was money in the 
pockets of the rezido of Spain. We made only 
a party call, leavin in two hours fur Cadiz, and 
passin' ole Gib without stoppin; visitors are. 
non grata now. 

Cadiz growed to 64,000 in 3,017 years. You 
know Spaniards are sposed not to hurry, The 
Romans called her Gades and she always had 
a rep. for gayety; the first gadders blonged 
theh. She is built on a low, small, almost island 
with no room for-platted additions; no chance 
for its benevolent promoter to show you a new, 



McCANN ON FURLOUGH lOl 

nicer place to live, So town lots is worth jest 
about as much as in King David of Israel the 
Psalmist's time. 

Phoencians was the first bold sailors of this 
world, but submarines and Mariner's Compass 
hadn't come to yet. They hung around the 
Mediterraneon fur quite a spell before anybody 
whistled up courage enough to go out past the 
Pillars of Hercules, a heathen alias (otherwise) 
for Gibraltar straits, and see wot the dreaded, 
fabled Atlantic was like; but one day a daring 
bunch in a boat sneaked ont past the Pillars 
of H and turned to the right dead agin 

the English rules. Right soon they come to a 
p!int or promontory high and skeery, A sailor 
sejested the subway to Hades was jest around 
the p'int; so they run the boat ashore an' sent 
a sailor over the hill to see. He got through 
an' set on a rock waitin, but a sea serpent met 
the boatload, and swallered boat and alL The 
lone scout on the rock waited a couple days^ 
then started back thro' the woods, but was 
never heern tell of. A year later a second lot 
or bunch come out, lookin fur the first; They 
come to the same p'int, sent a man over the 
same hill, waited one day, then went round and 
waited quite a spell but didn t go into the 
forest to look for their sailor-scout, for fear of 
bears, so he probly got lost. The others went 
on and founded the city of Cadiz about iioo 
B. C. (before the first Christmas.) 

Cadiz is 350 years older 'n Rome, but Rome 



104 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

growed fur a spell, and seems now to be in her 
second childhood, growin' some mo. Cadiz has 
a good Atlantic trade, seein ez how she is the 
neerdest Eu-rope-yen port to Southern U. S. A. 
and Central and South America, Many of the 
ships for Barcelona, Trieste and Genoa call at 
Cadiz, and their officers, some of them, some- 
times, call on her beautiful ladies. The warm, 
moist air gives them complexions enchanting^ 
captivating-fair, rosier, than the Carthageniau. 

Parque Genova and Avenue de Apodaca are 
attractive, Calle de Tetuan the best street. As 
per fore-goin, Cadiz has little room to grow side- 
ways, and the houses is tall, and nearly all are 
painted white, which gives to Cadiz from the 
sea an aspect unique : a snow-drop in turquoise 
or emerald setting. 

A Himerican promoter, probly a Chermin 
spy, has been shini^' round Alice. 



As we docked at a U. S. A. port, Alice^s girl 
friend cried: "How wise, and clever ,to come in a 
nootrat ship !** 

"'Twan't our faultV says Alice. **WeVe out 
fur adventures, but didn^t see even the Blue 
Canaries 1 ^^ 



[O^Donnell Duke of Tetuan died, say several 
books, 1867. Isabella was exiled 1868, which 
vindicates O^Donnell as to 1868-9. Espartero 
was a considerably greater national figure.] 



Beginning a New Age 

The Great War of 1914-19 will long baffle or 
confound writers who essay description graphic 
and picturesqve of the brilliant battles fought 
and so often won by the German armies, who 
entered upon the war more near perfectly led, 
trained and equipped than any before, ever, if 
each great military success brought them only 
nearer to total surrender, 

A dozen such victories led to ruin I 

Where is the Victor Hugo who can hold his 
gait describing a Waterloo that lasted from 
February to July ? 

•They fought from morn till noon, 



From noon till dewy eve: a summer's day 

[Here follows a Chronology] 

1914 THE WAR AT A GLANCE 

June 28 Murder of Archduke Franz at Sarajevo 

July 28 Austro-Hungary declares war on Servia 



1914 THE WAR AT A GLANCE 

Aug. I Germany declares War against Russia 

2 Germausdemandtransit acrossBelgium 

3 Germany declares , War upon France 

4 PresidentWilson proclaims U.S. neutral 
4 to 26 . Germans overrun Belgium 

4 Great Britain declares war on Germany 

12 ** '' " Austria 
18 Russia all mobilized^ invades E.Prussia 

23 Franco-British retreat from Mons, etc. 
31 Halt of Allies on the Seine and Marne 

Ciar re-names St. Petersburg Petrograd 
Sept* 3 French Government moves to Bordeaux 

5 Allies agree not to make separate peace 
6-10 Battle of the Marne, Germans retire 

7 Germans take Maubeuge 
II Australian expedition takesNewGuinea 

16 Russians driven from E.Prussia 
27 Botha invades Southwest Africa 

Oct. 9 Germans occupy Antwerp . 

13 Belgian Gov't moved to Havre, France 
i6-"a8— Battle of the Yser; Germans halted 

17 to Nov, 17— Battle ot Ypres 
2i-28~Germans driven back in Poland 

Nov. I German naval victory off Chili 

5 Great Britain declares war on Turkey 

7 Tsingtsau surrenders to the Japaoe^^e 
10-13 Austria invadesServia; British take 

Basra,P'"rsianGulf;PanauiaZone proc. neutral 
Nov.16,1914 Cruiser Emdeu captured Cocoslsld 
Dec. 2 Belgrade captured: recaptui^d Dec. 14 

8 Bnti«?h naval victory off Falkland Isles 
17 Egypt proclaimed a British protectorate 

24 First German air raid on England 



1915 THE WAR AT A GLANCE 107 

Jan. 7 France forbids sale of absinthe in War 
Jan. 5 Am. ship W.P.Frye sunk byEitel Frdch 
Ffb. 4 Germans proclaim war zone abt Britain 
Marchio British capture Neuve Chapelle 
March 17 Russians take Przemysl 
Apr.i7=-May 17 Germans use gas, 2d bat.Ypres 
Apr. 23 Germans warn vs. travel inBritish ships 
Apr.26 Allies land on Gallipoli Peninsula 
Apr.30 Germans invadeRussianBaltic provnces 
May 7 Lusitania sunk;ii54 lost, 114 American 
May lO.German message sympathy for lost Am's 
May23 Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary 
June 8 WmJ. Bryan, Secretary of State,resigns 
June 22 Austro-Germans re-capture Lemberg 
July 12 to SeptoiS Germans take Russ. Poland 
Aug. 20 Italy declares war on Turkey 
Sept. 18 Germans capture Wilna (Russia) 
Oct. 14 Britain declares war on Bulgaria 
Oct. 6 Austro-Germans overrun Servia 
Nov.— Russians advance on Teheran 
Dec, 10 Boy-Ed andVonPapen recalled fromU. Si 
Dec, 1 5 SirDouglasHaig succeedsSirJohnFrench 
Dec. 19. British evac. AnzaCjSulva bay(Gallipol) 



1916 THE WAR AT A GLANCE 

Jan. 8 British complete evacuatidn of Gallipoli 
Jan. 13 Cettinje, Montenegro, falls to Austrians 
Feb.i6 Germans acknTg liability for Lusitauia 
Feb.2i-July— Battle of Verdun 
Feb. 24 Wilson refuses to warn Americans not 

to travel on armed merchant ships 
Mar. 8 Germans declare war on Portugal 
Mar.19 Russians enter Ispahan 
Apr.17 Russians capture Trebizond 

24 Insurrection in Ireland 
Apr.26 Townsend surrenders to Turks at Kut 
May i6-June 3— Austrian attack in Trentino 

31 Naval battle of Jutland 
June 5 Lord Kitchener drowned ^ 

17 Russians take Czernowitz 
July I to Nov. Battle of the Somme 
Aug. 6 Italian offensive. Gorizia falls Aug. 9 
2 7 Italy declares war on Germany 
Roumania joins Allies; Bucharest fallsDec.6 
Sept. 7 Senate ratifies buy of Danish Virgin isls. 
Dec. 6 Fall of Asquith; Lloyd-George Premier 
12 German Peace offer: Allies decline, 30th 
demand ^'restoration, reparation, indemnities" 
Dec. 18 Wilson peace note; 26th German reply 



1917 THE WAR AT A GLANCE 109 

Feb. 3 Wilson dismissesBernstorf, severs rePtns 
12 Will not treat till U-boats are withdrawn 
24 Kut re-taken by Gen. Maude 
Mar 4 British take over entire Somme front 

of 100 mi., Fr. 173: Belg. 25 mi. 
Mar. 1 1 Bagdad falls to Gen. Maude 

15 Czar abdicates; revolution in Russia 
Apr. 6 U.S. declares war on Germany. 
May 17 Kerensky minister of war 

18 Wilson signs selective draft act 
June 10 Italian Trentino offensive 

I King Constantine of Greece abdicates 
26 First American troops reach France 
29 Greece joins Allies and enters war 
July 4 Bethmann-Hollweg resigns 
Aug. 10 Food Control enacted 
Sept. 3 Germans capture Riga 

15 Russian Republic 
Oct. 26 Brazil declares war on Germany 
Oct.24-Dec. Great Austrian drive in Italy 
Nov. 1 3 Clemenceau succeeds Premier Painleve 
Nov.22 to Dec. 13^ — Battle of Cambrai 
Nov. 29 Col. House attends ist inter-allied Conf. 
Dec. 6 Destroyer Jacob Jones torpedoed 
Dec. 7 UriitedStates declares war onAustria^-H. 
Dec. 9 Allenby captures Jerusalem 
Dec. 14 Cuba declares war on Austria 
Dec. 18 Sixteen Gothas raid London 
Dec. 24 Germans break Italian line near Asiago 
Dec. 26 ViceAdmiralWemyss istLordAdmiralty 
Dec. 3 1 LordRhondda rations sugarjj^ft) a week 



1918 THE WAR AT A GLANCE 

Jao. 7 Mutiay at Kiel, 38 killed 

Earl Readiug ambassador to U S 
14 Murder of Lenine attempted 

26 Ostend bombarded 

29 Sir E. Carson resigns from BrtshCabinet 
Italians break German line near Asiago 
Air raid over London kills 47,injures"ioo 

30 ** '' Paris " 36 *' 190 
Feb. 3 Gen, March, Chief of General Staff U S 
Feb. 4 Trial begun of Bolo Pasha 

Feb. 1 2 Eighth session Long(est) Parliament 
Feb. 14 Bolo sentenced to death; executed Apr 16 
Lord Northcliffe Director of Propaganda 
18 Bolshiviki capture Kiev 
23 English occupy Jericho 

Roumania makes peaee with Germany 
Mar»2, Germans enter Kiefif (Kiev) 

10 Russian Capital Moscow, vice Petrograd 
13 Germans enter Odessa 
18 Britain and US seizeDutch ships in ports 
21 Teutons capture Pultowa (Poltova) 
Mar, 21 '^Fat Bertha" bombards Paris (61 mi.) 
28 Turk army destroyd;Britsh crossjordan 
^o Foch Commander-in Chief of Allies 

31 Nation! Debt of Britain $29,500,000,000 
Apr 4 U S troops occupy Meuse hghtSjVerdun 

13 House of Commons passes man-power bill 

23 'ReichtofeB,Teutonair-king,buried Londn 

May 4 Sir John French Lord Lieut, of Ireland 

13 Karl a dVVilhelm form 25-year alliance 

Kaiser proclaims Lithuania independent 

19 Major Raoul Lufbery shot down 

20 Twenty planes raid London; 44 killed 



1918 THE WAR AT A GLANCE 111 

May 30 Germans take Soissons,35,ooo prisoners 
June 3 Fr.&Americans force foe re-cross Marne 

19 Teuton attack on Rheims repulsed 
July 15 Hayti declares war; Q„ Roosevelt killed 

12 Russian Czar murdered 

19 Americans&Froforce foe back to theAisne 

Honduras declares war, 

18 Hoover: U. S.sent Europe $1,400,000,000 

food in yr; Aug, 29,Brtisli takeBapaume 

21 Cliateau-Thierry occ.by Fr. & Americans 

gain 197 towns, 1000 sq.mi.,lineshort*nd 33 mi 

a6 Lloyd-George istrikers must work or fight 

Aug. 19 D'Annunziodrps 14 bombs onPolaarsenal 

23 Foch created Marshal of France 
Sept. 16 Czechoslovaks appeal for allied help 
23 English, Caledonians andlrish enterAcre 
30 Max of Baden Chancellor, vice Hertling 
Oct. I Allcnby captures Damascus, capital of 
Syria, 300,000; Servians re-enter Nish - 
5 Teutons leave LilkjSet fire to Douai 

Ferdinand abd, Bulgaria, Boris abd.Nov.i 
8 Caledoniansjlrish. English occupyBeirut 

13 French take Laon. 

18 Guatemala con6scatesGermn light-plant 

16 Albrt enters Oster.d; Nov.g Kaiser quits 

Max Dictator few days; EbertChancellor 

Nov, 1 1 Armistice signed; 12th Kaiser Karl abd, 

Dec.13 President Wilson arrives in France 

Dec. 26 Wilsou guestKingGeorg[eJan.6**T.R"dies 

28 Lloyd-George lias 519 in iiewParliamenl,alloppel88 



1919 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

Feb »i'i9 KurtEisner,Premier,killed at Munich 
May igCongress in spl session to receiveTreaty 
June 28 Germans sign Treaty at Versailles 
Aug.16,'19 KingGeorge signsAct approvgTreaty 



At the Corner-Stone of Bunker Hill Mon^ 
ument in 1825 Daniel Webster said: 

^We live in a most extraordinary Age.'* 

No man has ever since so characterized A. D„ 
1825! It seems to us later Americans rather 
the central j^ear of interregnum between the 
introduction of the steamboat and the introduc- 
tion of the locomotive; between the first Amer- 
ican Protective Tariff and the first compromise 
with threatened Secession: between the reaper 
and mower and the invention of Electric Teleg- 
raphy. The extraordinary age that produced 
DauielWebster had not yet produced either the 
Locomotive or Telegraph, 

The first days of a more extraordinary age 
were coincident with the months of 1916 from 
which the policy of Mr. Lloyd-George began to 
control the British Empire: for a few weeks in 
the Asquith Cabinet, then under himself as 
Prime Minister— a policy that forced all of the 
principal nations save Spain and the Dutch and 
Scandinavian nations to become allies, and up- 



BEGINNING A NEW AGE 113 

set the world-old customs of commerce and war 
and discredited many modern inventions: smoke 
screens or barrages nullified smokeless powder; 
in two years commodities, priced in gold, rose 
farther than they had previously risen in price 
in any one entire century. 

Wilhelm II, his Generals and Arniies, at the 
commencement of the war, were found be in a 
state of preparedness superior to any contem- 
porary, and possibly without a lival in the 
whole historic past. A British writer of humor 
made the pat and timely cavil that Germany's 
entire military system was in such a condition 
of perfection that its nomenclature even could 
not be improved in a single polysyllable. The 
very name of every military, war-like article, 
iota, item or appurtenance was infallibly and 
accurately descriptive. No better name could 
be found had one searched all summer, nor any 
coined, which obviated delays more numerous 
than one might suspect; and so it came about 
that even finical word-smiths found nothing to 
do but march and fight. 

The German army, as we have seen, was 
ready. :. The navy was not. 

Soon after the accession of William II, in 
1888, he began to formulate a system of over- 
seas corn mercial expansion and colonies. His 
Chancellor Prince Bismarck, though hostile to 
every, forru of Anglomania, in which hostility 



114 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

he had been supported hitherto by the young 
Kaiser, now opposed the Kaiser' naval and ex» 
pansion prog^ram as likely to embroil Germany 
with Great Britain^ Bismarck retired, and the 
Kaiser pushed vigorously forward his plans for 
a great navy. 

During the twenty-odd ensuing years, the 
overseas trade of Germany made surprisingly 
great advances. In the South Pacific and in 
South America the time could be foreseen when 
Germans would control the market; and«a large 
part of the staple fabrics, especially the cheaper 
metal ware, sold in even Britain, and in the 
-United States, bore the soon-familiar graven 
legend, "Made in Germany/* 

During three or four years next preceding 
1914, although Germany^s mercantile fleet con- 
tinued to grow rapidly, the interest of the 
German nation in her war navy seemed to 
slacken. Here lay the fatal weakness. In 
1914 its war fleet ranked next below that of the 
United States, far behind Britain's. When the. 
American fleet in 1917 was united with the al- 
lied seatigers of Britain, France and Italy, the 
out=starving of Germany became a not far-dis- 
tant certainty, in spite of all the victories of 
her, land Army. 

An American naval Captain (raised later to 
Rear Admiral) Alfred T. Mahan, was the first 
author to set forth clearly the "Influence of 



BEGINNING A NEW AGE 115 

Sea Power upon History." The war of 1914-19 
confirmed in every item his deductions from 
the history of former wars. The ships and 
sailors of the Allies did not do much fighting 
in comparison with their armies, but the pre- 
ponderant strength they represented chiefly 
sufficed, with their own vigilance, to make pos 
sible the achievements of soldiers and states- 
men, of munition-makers and workers^ 

Admiral Mahan died a few months after the 
war^s commencement, Dec. i, 1914, at the age 
of 74. Astonished no doubt by the swift and 
seemingly irresistible advance of the Germans 
in August to within fifty miles of Paris, there 
is no reason to doubt that he died serene and 
confident of the truth of his ov^n precepts and 
deductions from history, which proved that in 
the final event victory for Germany was not in 
the range of possibility: 

During forty years of peace, German militar- 
ists had studied war, and several inventions or 
improvements evidenced their originality and 
thoroughness. Long-range small arms and 
smokeless powder had been the pretext for 
creeping-u.p movements at night, which had 
brought the trenches of either army into close 
proximity to the tnemy, so that grenades and 
other missiles were thrown by hand into the 
hostile trenches, and soldiers were drilled in 
this hand-throwing, which seemed likely to re- 
sult in a permanent stall, which was broken up 
or obviated by the device credited to a German 



116 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

General, von Hutier. A brief but violent bom= 
bardment preceded the attack by a strong force 
wliicli emerged suddenly and rapidly, ^n solid 
formation, from a thick smoke-barrage. This 
device drove the British back behind the Somme 
in 1918, and caused the Caporetto disaster to 
Gen^^^Cpunt Cadorna's army in October, 1917, 
>^'hich, exposing "Venice, occasioned retirement 
of that GeneraL Gen. Diaz succeeded him. 

-In. April, J[9i5, Germans began using poison 
igas at the second battle of Ypres. This use 
of gas, >yas bitterly denounced by the British; 
but,: before the end of the war, the British used 
gas nii-^re sucx:essfully than the Germans* 

Submarine or under-sea boats were used in 
this war, first, most destructively by Germans. 
l^^evertheless, before the war ended Britain had 
larger and finer submarines than lany of the 
enemy's. One of these war-time creations, not 
quite completed at the Armistice, carried a 300 
ton gUU, ,' '. : ■ ' 

On the side of the Allies, the French armies 
and the British navy were alone in any sense 
prepared to resist the German attack. On the 
land Britain's soldiers were thrown against the 
perfectly-trained and supplied enemy minus the 
indispensable adequate supply of .ainmunition^ 

**A heavier gunfire is the best forlificaitjous" 

The British people could not beai^f the .J;l^ugh' 



BEGINNING A NEW AGE 117 

that Britain's soldiers should be exposed for 
lack of ammunition helpless before the best- 
equipped army that ever took the field. Never 
did the latent heroism of the British nation 
come to the front more brilliantly, to shine re« 
fulgent. Men, women and children of every 
rank set themselves to work in ammunition 
factories. The United States was called on for 
thousands of tons, and in 1917 and 1918 Britain 
alone was able to supply herself, 

When» after fifty-two years of unbroken 
peace (the war of 1898 requiring no great ex» 
ertion) the United States sent a great array to 
Europe, and a powerful fleet, both wer^ found 
to be well-equipped in every detail, modern and 
efficiently supplied. There was some early 
criticism of the army crdnance, but none of 
the navy's. The Army needs, were of course, 
multiplied many times by the War. 

[At Caporetto Austn>Germans broke Italy's 
lines, drove her army many mileSj took Udine.] 



BOOK 11 



OUR INNINGS 

Western Army 

KNTOMOLOGY OF CAMOUFLAGE 

Paris, Sept, 3, 1917. 
PVance is mos' normal oncet mo'; leastways, 
she seems to be, this fur from the region of 
shot'tO'pieces villager and keutry ripped up by 
shell-holes and trenches, they are even resumin 
the aunty^bellum custom of exchangin minis- 
tries oncet in so often, or twicet^ rather. 

M» Ribot, who wears whiskers all over his 
face, was replaced as premier by M. Painleve, a 
much younger man, who wears only a mous- 
tache. So fur as I kin learn, they wan't naw- 
thin agin M, Ribot barrin the situation that the 
mo' younger men, who boss this war, are agin 
whiskers, bein ez how they seem to transform a 
comparative youthful statesman into a back- 
number prcmatoorly old. Ribot is not a back 
number, but one of the greatest French era- 



120 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

tors, a able and patriotic statesman, and has an 
army of friends yetj if his whiskers haven't. 

The new premier is M. Panlevay (Painleve), 
which is French fur a kind of bread we don't 
often git. 

Next Paris had a street-car strike. 

And now the ladies from Cuby, Argentine, 
England and U.S.A. is flockin to Paris to buy 
dresses, millionary, lingerie, jest ez in the brav' 
days of old, ef not so m,any. A millionaire lady 
from New York, attended only by a maid and 
show-fear, smiled pleasant at me on the rue de 
la Paix. She is a member of the well-known 
■ .. fambly, and had'nt nawthin on but 

gray. [British Americans in Paris spells it 
grey,] She looked like Martha (Dandridge 
Custis) Washington or a student at BrynMawr 
in grey, and as nice as she could be. 

It hez been known for aeons that women hez 
mo' passive courage than men. Ef she hez the 
price, and kin find a ship, all the under-sea 
boats afloat kaint keep her 'way from Paris. I 
shouldnt wonder if some of 'em hoofed it in 
from Bordeaux ! 

Ez I was sayin, but forgot to say, the couleur 
de style fur next year is black trimmed with 
white. Grey aint so fashionable, and is the one 
other color permitted. If them dark-eyed ladies 
from Cuby and elsewhere don't look fetchin in 



ENTOMOLOGY OF CAMOUFLAGE 121 

black trimmed with white, I aint no jedge. I 
see khaki is confined to folks ez hez relations 
in the army neerder than second cousins. 

Paris, too, is -reaching out for the argent 
[money] of visitin Hiruericans in her same old 
cheerful, debonair way Strictly and literally, 
argent means silver, but in truly French life is 
made to kivver also gold, which in some parts 
of Paris is much preferred. Our five and ten 
dollar gold pieces is greatly admired ; they even 
'How that the tam,e Rozyvelt eagle looks hand- 
some and intelligent, and it beats all how rapid 
Parisians learns the value of our coin. It takes 
us a heap longer to get onto commodity prices 
here: some things sells shockin low, others 
viva voce, which is the opposite. 

[In 1892, two John A. Taylors helped to get 
Lewis county, Wash., her sheer in politics. 
John A. Taylor, Mayor of Centralia, was a 
Democrat. John A. Taylor, of Adna, was a 
Republican stand-by, and was cheerman of the 
county convention, which voted to omit calling 
the roll of precincts on a certain question. The 
Cheerman rose: 

"Gentlemen of the Convention: On this 
question, the vote will be vice versa ! "] 

When Peggy and Sallie was in Paris in '13, 1 
enj'yed one evening ^t the Cabaret of the Six 
Hundred and Four Murders on Montmartre. 



122 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

One evening recent I went to the same quiet 
ramshackle place not fur from the Boulevar' de 
Clichy, which is the Brodwy of Moufmartre. 
Its name has been changed to Maison de St. 
Josephus, in deference to liimerican and Brit- 
ish prejudice, and probly in honor of Secretly 
Dan'ls, to fool the Marines, but it was the same 
inside, barrin a few fresher-faced ladies. In '13 
black and white was rulin mode in women hab- 
bytoos ef not yet in clothes — black ey«s and 
hair, and faces mos' pow'ful white. This trip I 
was settin nice and quiet at a little table. In 
all Paris ye kaint buy whisky or vermouth or 
absinth after nine thirty, nawthin but light 
wines, champagne and sich. At the neerdest 
table set a little beauty, with a form like Psy- 
che's, eye like Venus^s, and a voice like the 
Goddess of Music's— I disremember her name 
jest at this juncture. With her was a habbytoo 
of about eighty year but built powerful He 
was in black and white, too— dark black soot, 
dull black face an' hands, bris'lin white haV, 
and white shirt-front He 'minded me some of 
Alexandre Dumas (the Biggest) and some of 
Honore de Balzac, All to oncet the little lady 
she took a XXXX wallet-flap bond envelope 
from her corsage, or vest-pockit, gazes at a 
pliotygraft, and kisses it with abandon, passion. 
Her escort he draws a big hunting knife, and 
grabs her by the hair. She gives me one terri- 
fied iraplorin look: When in doubt, spring to 
the rescue. I sprang, interposin my horse-shoein 
arm to stop the blow, at the same time quailin 



ENTOMOLOGY OF CAMOUFLAGE .123 

him with my hazel eye. The lady clang to my 
left arm in terror, the horchestra struck up a 
merry valse; and she steered me out on the 
floor, missin every mother's son of a table, and 
me goin' on 69 ! 

When she pushed me into my cheer she says: 

*'Ze champagne, it is five dollars, now." 

*^Jewhillikins 1 four years ago it v^as only $4, 

**It is ze high cost of livin. I will tell you a 
sekert: It was a Frame-np. He taught me the 
frame-up." Then she showed me the photy- 
graft, portrait of a wealthy Himerican writer, 
on the staff of — — 's, with his autograft, 
brazen as brass. ^ 

"The on-velope won't wear out soon,." I says, 
dry-like. 

*Xe soldat American, I adore him." 

"Them's regulars: jest wait till ye see oui 
drafted men. I know one that's worth a mill- 
ion dollars, and ye wouldn't think he had a 
thousand, the way he behaves: he's so modest. 

In 'Te^fgy McCann ' I informed Peggy, as we 
wandered in a beautiful cemetery, that the 
wealthy, livin' and dead, takes to the high 
ground jest ez they did in the days of Noah." 

Above aint true consarnin Montmartre, tho 
of they'd sava their money, they'd be rich in 
time, those on the boulevar' anyway. Mont- 



124 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

martre, I cal'late, is the higliest p'int or hill 
rather, in Paris, and has the best view of the 
most interestin part. No rich folks has their 
homes — are with theirselves— theh as yet. 

One day, when '88 was fadin into '89, Uncle 
Blair was on root to Frisky. He see on the 
train a man that minded him some of Joaquin 
Miller, and some ways of the Prophet Jonah. 
He was goin to get off at Weed, where they 
wan't no fish big enough to swoUer him. His 
h'ar was long, and curled on his neck, and his 
whiskers were copious and gray. He set on me 
a warnin eye, and quoted from the Gospel of 
and acordin' to St. Luke the Beloved Physician 
[Not in King Jeem's version]: 

San Francisco, thou that stonest the prophets 
And persecutest them that are sent unto thee: 
How oft would I hev gethered thy children 

together, 
Even as a hen hovereth her chickens under her 
wingSj 
But ye would not." 

San Francisco allers did have a gay, don't give 
a dang way with her Jonahs, like a balky but 
beautiful and charmin' lady. 

"YouDg man," says old Dyodgenes,*' ye'll 
live to see grass growin in the streets of San 
Francisco." 

That was some years befo^ au^tomobeels come 



ENTOMOLOGY OF CAMOUFLAGE 125 

into vogue. In less ^n 3 days Uncle did see 
grass growin' in the streets of The City, on a 
south **slope," south front, I mean, of NobHill, 
growin' in between the cobble-stones of Mason, 
from Sooter, and Post, too, to California. He 
never see no delivery wagons climb that hill, 
and he often set and wondered how Flood, Fair, 
Mackay and O'Brien, Stanford and Hopkins 
and Crocker, got anything to eat. 

Some places on the Butte of Montmartre calls 
to mind a few high-spots of Frisky; but some 
streets on the Butte I wouldn't climb for forty 
dollars at or after the witchin' hour of midnight 
—two or three dogs I don't like the looks of. 

Diane 'llowed as how les soldats americaines 
is plumb anxious to speak the French, and 
learn so rappide. ^'Helas ! it is I who could it 
teach, did I but know z'americaine, which you, 
Monsieur, speak so lovely." 

To my mebby too fastidious ear, the French 
our men pick up is too colloquial to comport 
with the dignity of Uncle Samuel. (Sammy is 
to my notion a mo' stately name than Tommy) 
The French language is gittin the worst of it 
in some pertioklers in this war, not doin as 
well as the army. 

Take that word camouflage we hear so much. 
^Taint in Surenne's big dictionary, leastways it 
wan't when I left home. Ef a word aint in the 
dictionary, dig fur its root, and git track of the 



126 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

entomology of it. The root is the verb camou- 
fler, which means to shake a piece of vvhite 
paper in your face by way of insult, or to dis- 
tract attention. Sometimes they'd set fire to 
the paper. In war-time brown paper will do. 
The word has been so jolted and jiggered by 
the war so*s to mean any sort of disguise; 

Big Dictionary Littre, the progress of whose 
4-volu me folios was noted by John Bigelow in 
his diaries, says: 

**Camouflet rime avec traits, jamais, succes^ 
paix." It also rime avec Littre. 

In October, 184— the editor of Grayum's 
Magazine was settin' in^ his cheer when Edgar 
Allen Poe come in with a poem that was to 
have appeared in August, ihat the editor paid 
$2 fur in July. The editor rose, took the poem, 
see that the poem contained six words^ barred 
in the magazine, then crumpled up and shook 
the poem in Poe^s face. That was camouflage.; 
Then he opened the door and threw Poe down 
stairs. Next, he threw the poem, fluttering, 
down-stairs after him; then he went down his> 
self, retrieved the poem, put in four or five 
amendings of his own that made Poe Crazy 
as a bed-bug, and run it in December. . ■ 

It was way back in 14, not fur Irom the river 
Aisne, that a French officer was settin up a 
battery of 75's, and was pertickler anxious tbe 
crack'German gunners shouldn't get a bead on 
him befuV he got his guns in position, so he 
tells a subordinate to climb a **rise" off to one 
side and distract the enemy's attention by 



ENTTOMOLOGY OF CAMOUFLAGE 127 

some kind of Camouflage. The officer clumb 
the cue tall tree on the hill .and begun usin 
the Chermin signal code, which allers made 
em hot: Pigs of Chermins, Down mit die Ki- 
zier, and the like. By and by or purty soon 
a big shell cut the tree off slick and clean, 
obout ten foot from the ground. It fell so the 
leaves and branches hid the guns exactly. 
The chief congratulated his subordinate, who 
got only an arm and leg broke (in French) "The 
tree beat our Camouflage all to the Dickens ! 

So they called the tree-boughs they used ever 
after, and every other concealment, from a 
sprinkle of flour or a load of hay to a hand- 
painted mountain — Camouflage I 



Whiskers and Motors 

Inside the War Zone, Sept. 14, 1917. 

In my last I jest tetched on the war 'twixt 
Whiskars and no Whiskers* It's too much 
like this war itself, most a toss-up. The 
British and French has been pushin em right 
along all summer in France and Flanders. 

Battle on battle, victory on top of victory, 
altho some call the whole kit, the whole 
summer series, one battle, has gained sich a 
few miles, and they's sich a many mo' to go, 
befo' we gits to Berlin. Howsomever, if we 
kin jest hold 'em level on the long line, Lloyd 
George and Hoover will Win the War, and 
make Grub so skeerce fur the Chermins at 
home that they'll git diskerridg. 

At a recent doins I observed that the men 
in the front row the Whiskers had one major- 
ity — ^about the same majority net that Sir Doo- 
glas has over the Chermins. M. Ribot stood 
nerd the middle, and was the tallest man of 
the bunch. He's over six foot high, stoops 
quite a bit, but has a fine face, a regal head. 



WHISKERS AND MOTORS 129 

He was tlie orator at the first celebration (the 
third anniversary) of the Battle of the Marne. 
His whiskers kivvers his whole face, and is 
'most white. 

President Poincare has whiskkers, too, but 
not a full set, jest moustache and g:o-tea, neat- 
trimmed. He's a small man. Premier Painleve 
is a middle-size middle-weight, with a heavy, 
on-yieldin moustache. 

Slathers of the French private soldiers is at 
present wearin full-beard whiskers. It's a lot 
of trouble to keep track of a comb, but if he 
lose his, some kin git purty good, combin 'em 
out with theh fingers. 

Why, when Prince Arthur of Connaught 
was invited to inspect a batch of French sold- 
iers (you bet it was a lot of the best) the man 
at the right end of the first file hed a fine, dark 
p'inted beard. The Prince, who is most tall 
as Abr'm Lincoln but right-smart bctter-lookin, 
don't wear no whiskers; His father the Duke 
aint so tall, nor quite so libel to let the troops 
know by his manner if they're lookin' well. 
The British, fur a fact, don't take to whiskers 
among theirselves. Most of their officers has 
a moustache, but they don't lay whiskers up 
aginst a Frenchman. I wear a perfickly smooth 
face, so that enemy or ally kin see all the lines 
and finger-prints of power and determination. 

I had less trouble with the author'ties than 
most of the cor'spondents. The trouble with 
many of them they don't know nawthin of 
officialism -at home, 



130 BI.UE EYE TO BERLIN 

The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That conscious merit from the onworthy takes. 

They've filers hed a cheap man or office boy 
to deal with Federal officials and sich-like. 
The time we hed a Democrat Postmaster atBlue 
Eye, I went to the complaint window to buy 5 
cents worth of stamps. The Postmaster was 
settin in the back office doin' a sum. I waited 
ten minutes while he never looked up. 

Then he says: *''Come around tomorrer.' 

''But 1 got to go to Bill Jasper's funeral." 

''Well; next week, then," and kicked shet 
the intervenin' do'. 

The p'int is them officials aint got no compe- 
tition. The great Chicago war correspondent, 
Ring W. Lardner,when his train from sumwers 
on the coast of France come to a good-sizable 
town, seems like it was Orleans, he see on the 
station, in bold type, a sign, 

SORTIE. 

Ring took it fur the name of the town, and he 
wrote about it in Collier's. Them bureaucrats' 
don't keer a dang if you git in or not, so they 
aint no sign, "Entrance," but a mighty plain 
one to show you where to get out, or sorlie. 

My fine record as a pussy footer, in Italy, 



WHISKERS AND MOTORS 131 

helped a lot. The Mar-Casey got me a recom 
mend from the censor at Udine, who wrote, 

"Ye kin trust Monsieur McCann. Entre 
nous, he is a pretty good censor hisself, and 
stands in, allers". 

When I left Paris for the front, I went afoot, 
seein ez how some cor'spondents hez mo' troubl 
with motors thsin with 'ficials. 

Pinned on. my coat-bosom was the Tricolour, 
Old Glory, and. my pass. About nine mile 
this side of sumwers, I see a cavalcade ahead, 
and heered a brave Himerican voice : "Whoa, 
Buck ! Haw, there, Berry ! " He wor standin 
up in his motor- keer, drivin a yoke oxens. Pie 
could crack a long whip-lash good. When I 
ketched up and passed him I smiles patterhizin 
at his outfit, and he says : 

"I say, old man, wot's the French fur Buck 
and Berry ? " 

•^Try Dan and Gran' (daim et grain)." 

"I kaint onderstand these French oxens," he 
adds, "or make them onderstand." 

His team was wobblin aud takin up a big 
sheer of the road: When he see a automobeel 
comin, he got out and pushed his oxens over 
with his hands. He was cor'spondent fur Ind- 
ianapolis . The last I heered of him 

was "Jee, Dan !" some forty rod back. 

They aint no mountings in this part of the 



132 BLUE EYK TO BERLIN 

French Republic, so they planted a row of pop- 
lars along the big road, like they used to plant 
wind-breaks in Newbrasky, to keep the private 
soldiers' whiskers from blowin' away. 

I cal'late theyVe been rcntin out condemned 
cars to correspondents. In the dusk an' drizzle 
last evening I run onto a broken-down motor 
that blonged to two corespondents. They'd got 
somehow two horses and hitched em to it. The 
horses was stuck fast between two trees on the 
left-hand side of the big-road. I see they had 
run right-hand rein of each horse thro the neck 
yoke ring ! 

"What in Sam Hill did ye do that fur ? 

**Thet's to keep em from gittin theh heads up 
and runnin' away." 

In parting one thanked me, adding: **I used 
to know Richard Harding Davis." 



Besieged is Lost 

Sortie (a good-sized town on the Railroad — 
Please thank the man who sent me a Collier's, 
with Mr. Lardner's mention of this place. 

Also to the lady who sent one of Ouida'^ 
novels to the soldier who gave it to me. They 
come in a box marked 

**Keep in a Cool Place" 

Some of the Stories in that box is mo' like to 
'splode than any of Ouida's ef they git overhet. 
They aint much chanst to git over-bet inNorth 
France this winter, tho it aint a bad winter, 
compairin with the other three. 

On the 25th of July, 1870, President Grant 
was settin out on the piazza of his cottage at 
Long Branch, in New Jersey, when Phil Sheri- 
dan come up, saluted, and shook hands. Phil 
flowed he had some thoughoughts of a v'yage 
to Europe, ez how he might get some new pints 
from the Franco-Prussian war jest started. 



134 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

Grant he said nawth'in, but smoked a couple of 
minutes longer, then he stepped into his par- 
lor thro the long, low windows, pulled a cheer 
up to his writin desk, and writ a letter of inter- 
duction informin the crowned haids ot Europe 
that Sheridan was ''one of the bravest and 
most skillful soldiers developed by the late war 
in America." Then Grant took his cigar out of 
his mouth and 'llowed it was a fine day, but 
like as not pretty warm back in Perry county, 
O.," where Phil growed up, and was appinted to 
the Academy from. " 

The French high command wouldn't let Phil 
go with them, mebby Napoleon III was skeert 
Phil might lead his Army into Poatsdam and 
git to be Philippe the Sixth. When Sheridan 
got to Berlin in August^ evry danged crowned 
male head was out-o-town: when Moltky struck 
his tunin-fork, royal princes had to go, same as 
bricklayers. But the Queen of Prooshy (later 
Empress Augusty^ invited iiim to the Palace, 
and made him tell her a little about Five 
Forks and Cedar Creek. He couldnt tell her 
about Sheridan's Ride, as he hadn't yet met 
Buchanan Read, the author. (He met Read in 
Rome the follerin winter, and spelled the name 
Reed in his Memoirs.) When he ketched up to 
Headquarters, he got solid by askin Bismarck 
wot clothes he ought to wear. Other visitors 
asked old Blut und Eisen things he dassent 
tell, und got snubbed: but, like many another 
big-bug, Bismarck prided hisself in things he 
was a amytpor ir;, Avliich shows Phil wan't no 



BESIEGED IS LOST 135 

Jay, but had the salve-for~fair of a highly- 
improved son of Irish parents. Old Wilhelm 
I. was chummy with him after bein' crowned 
Emprer in Looey Fourteen's famous old Palace 
of Vairsail, but he knowed he'd be solider b}^ 
not braggiu. They decided upon a Himerican 
fatigg uniform, leavin off the sword to show he 
v^an't one of the killers. He looked on at the 
great battle of Gravelotte (near our root to Co- 
blenz) where he Probly see mo' actual killing 
than at Five Forks, havin more time to hisselt: 
the charge of the French cavalry was magnif- 
icent to see 
For one who had no friend, no brother there, 

Ef it wan't Sheridan's way of usin cavalry; 
in all his born days he never sent horses up 
against solid lines of infantry — in 1862 he was 
a Quartermaster buying horses iir Michigan 
and knowed how much they cost. Prooshin 
needle-guns brot down horses a long ways 
off. Even Hoover couldnt of bulldozed bim to 
feed a off-duty horse corn. He was reckoned 
a favorite of Grant, but he had Grant beat, ez 
bow he lied been a horse-buyer as above, was 
up north buyin fur the Army when Grant was 
fightiu at Pittsburg Landin, danged close to the 
Landin. Sheridan's trooper knowed Little Phil 
woodnt send him out on a rheumatic horse, but 
wood buy him a good one. Then ''Get there, my 
boy, or the firin-squad. Grant rode well and was 
agood jedgeof horses, but undervalued cavalry. 
Meade had small use for mounted troops: when 



136 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

Sheridan come East to command the cavalry, 
Army of the Potomac, he quarreled with Meade 
first thing about his cavalry corps. Meade was 
powerful sore when Lincoln and Stanton was so 
delighted at nothavin to git out at midnight to 
man the forts no mo' that they made Sheridan 
a Major General of regulars ahead of Meade, 
for his victories in the Valley. Grant didnt 
recommend it, ez how he didnt want to hurt 
Meade's feelins; and he wouldnt let Sheridan 
ride in the Grand Review, ez how he ranked 
Meade, but hurried him off to Texas, to fight 
tarantulas and other insex. 

This fur from a Cyclopedy, I furgit wot hero 
said, epigrammatically; 

A besieged army is a lost army. 

They don't do it no more. Even in our oncivil 
war, no city stood a siege after Vicksburg. Not 
one in Europe after Paris in 1870. In this 
war, the long line sways forward or back, but 
no army gits surrounded. Sheridan criticised 
modestly Bazaine for shutting np hisself and 
180,000 men in Metz. If Metz was to be held 
at all, 25,000 could hold Metz jest ez well. It 
was easy as fallin' off a log to^git recruits fur 
Grant's army after he got Pemberton penned 
up. Folks like to poke up and pester caged 
animiles. 

Sometimes the best scholar pans out in truly 



THOMAS AND MASON 137 

life pure gold. Lee graduated second in his 
class. 1 furgit who it was ranked above him. 
At West Point they used to put the best grad- 
uates in the Enginers; second, Artillery; 3d, 
Cavalry; 4th, Infantry Grant, Sheridan, Han- 
cock, went to the Infantry. The Academy dons 
sent Sheridan home for a year, and it took him 
five years to graduate, Hancock had eighty- 
five demerits his first year,Lee ne'er a one, Geo. 
H. Thomas had jest got a job as deputy clerk 
in one of the Dismal Swamp counties of Virgin- 
ia, not fur from Jerusalem Plank Road and the 
battlefields of Dinwiddie Court House and Five 
Forks. ' Like some parts of the county of 
Lewis in early days, plank roads was the only 
kind ye could tetch bottom on. Gen. Scott come 
from close by. Thomas's town was Jerusalem 
C. H. till the folks got tony and changed the 
name to Courtland. One day John Y, Mason, 
M. C. (not the Trent Mason, James M., but the 
one Charles Sumner made fun of fur gittin Em- 
press Eugenie's playing=keerds all stained up 
with tobacco juice— He also was a diplomatist, 
minister to France, and died 1859— called. He 
admired Thomas's stalwart frame and offered 
him the 'pintment to West P'int; Thomas, on 
his way to West Point to be xamined fur cause 
stopped in Washington to thank Mason once 
mo', but Mason cut him short: ''No cadet from 
my deestrick at West P'int ever graduated. If 
you don't I don't never Vi^ant to see your face 
agin." 

Thomas was pow'ful keerful to graduate 'bov 



i^^ BtUB mn TO BERLIN 

the Itiiddle. Me got in the Artillery, but never 
went to see Mason agin. 

Long after, at West Point, Prof.Mahan said: 

*'0f all our GeneralSjThomas most resembled 
Washington- in cbaracten'* 

Washington wouldn't a been best scholar. 
At Blue Eye we hauled our best scholar Vound 
spellin' down other of the deestrick schools. He 
got a school hisself, but the big boys put him 
outdoors, which busted him fur teaching in 
that kentry, 

Warren was a fine scholar, brave and skillful 
*-but one patternizin, sarcastic retort to Sheri- 
dan about Bobby Lee was the cause of his losin 
his job at Five Forks, Sheridan was proud and 
niebby a little tetchy about them good scholars, 
Meade said sumpin like it to Grant when U, 
S. G. took holt in '64. 



War Back Numbers 

When U. S. A. declared war on Germany, 
April 6, 1917, the Allied armies of Britain and 
France had already begun their fourth cam- 
paign not far from the point on the west front 
reached by the Germans in 191 4. 

In three weeks of 191 4, Aug, 4 to a6, th« 
German invaders, entering via Luxealliour^, 
had captured every important city of BelgiudI 
except Antwerp and Ypres. Liege, Brugear, 
Brussels, Namur, Ostend fell in rapid order, 
Antwerp fell Oct. 9. Ypres remained iu Belgian 
and British possession till the war's conclusion. 
The first battle for its possession lasted thirty 
one days, from Oct. 17 to Nov. 17, 1914. Tht 
second battle of Ypres lasted thirty days, from 
April 17 to May 17, 1915. With Ypres the Al- 
lies held a little strip, a few square miles, of 
Belgian territory. 

Russia, against whom Germany's first decla- 
ration of war was launched, had a few surprfs- 
ing initial successes. Aug. 18 she invaded E. 
Prussia and threatened Koenigsburg, but was 



140 BLUE KYE TO BERLIN 

driven back across the frontier, a month later. 
Russia celebrated St. Patrick's Day, 1915, by 
capture of Przemysl, Austrian Galicia, but the 
Austrians recovered Lemberg and Przemysl in 
June. Russians captured Ispahan March 19, 
and Trebizond April 17, 19 16. 

Aug. 23. 1914, the British and French fell 
back fromMoDS, Aug-.3i they halted at the Seine 
und Marne. Sept. 6-10 was fought the first bat- 
de of the Marne, The day before the battle, 
the French government removed to Bordeaux, 
and Oct. 13, four days after the fall of Antwerp 
the Belgian government moved to Havre. Oct. 
16 to 28 was fought the battle of the Yser, and 
the progress of the Germans towards the En- 
glish Channel was arrested by'the ancient god 
Terminus.- 

;Qn -Nov. 5 Great Britain declared war on the 
Ottoman ports, bringing Turke^^ into the war. 
Dec. 17 Britain frankly assumed a protectorate 
overEgypt, replacing the old, cumbrous fiction. 
April 26, 1915, an allied force, for the greater 
part British and Australasian,landed onGalipoli 
peninsula, the Northern shore of the Dardan- 
elles, to attempt the capture of Constantinople. 
Such was^the bloodiest blunder. A relatively 
small Turkish force sufficed to hold the narrow 
approaches and to slaughter the assailers. On 
Dec. 19 the British began to evacuate the pen- 
insula. Jan. 8, 19 16, the evacuation was com- 
pleted. The object was to use Britain's great 



WAR BACK NUMBER 141 

battleships. Even Turkish land fortifications, 
German-officered, were superior, and infantry 
assaults proved suicidal. 

When Gen. Allenby, having conquered Pal- 
estine, approached through Syria, from the Asia 
minor side, Constantinople fell, easily, without 
another struggle or a groan, and the force out- 
side her northern gate marched in and took 
possession, much as Gen. Weitzel took hold at 
Richmond in 1865. 

The Transcript (Boston, U.S.A.) when some 
one remarked the slow progress of the British 
across the Desert of Sinai, cited the fact that 
Moses, Aaron and the soldiers of Israel took all 
of forty years to cross the same desert. 

LieutenantGeneralSir Archibald Murray, on 
June 18, 1917, found on arriving at the western 
border of the Promised Land of Canaan, that 
Gen. Sir Moses Moses was Murray's true ante- 
type, or prototype, maybe. Said the Angel to 
Moses: '*Thou shalt not enter in,'- His orders 
.s*a:id::to Gen. Murray, worn and weary: *'Turn 
over your command to Lieut, Gen. Sir Edmund 
H, H. AUenby" (a younger malt.) 

Allenby wasn't able to get results right this 
minute. Nearly all his transport, including 
30,000 camels, had to go to his eastern army. 
Near the Dead Sea the Arabian Sherif of Mecea 
whom the British had foxily made King ofHed- 



142 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

jaz, a thorn in the side (and back) of the Turk 
kept the latter busy. It was Oct. 31 when Al- 
lenby attacked and captured Beersheba the same 
day. Gaza, Samson's town, a strong place, fell 
Nov. 7; Jaffa, Nov. 17. Then he marched on 
Jerusalem, which ranks next to Mecca and Me- 
dina among the holy cities of the Turk, and he 
put up a stiff fight for it at El Mughir. Here 
Capt. Neil Primrose, son of Marquis of Rose- 
bery, was killed. Allenby says "The Turk is a 
fine horseman and a fine shot, especially at 
longrange," Gen. Falkenhayn came fromAleppo 
to advise^ but soon went away. Kress von 
Kressenstein, a Bavarian, commanded Turkish 
army. Djemel Pasha, commander-in-chief, was 
at Damascus. Jericho fell Feb. 23^ 1918. 

Damascus (275,0003 surrendered Oct. i, '18. 
Allenby entered the city that day, accompanied 
by his Arab ally, Emir Faisul. Allenby then, 
withdrew, leaving the citizens in control. 
, Acre occupied Sept. 23. 

Beirut occupied Oct. 8, '18, 

The main reason Gen. Allenby got so xnuch 
attention is folks knowed better his sphere of 
inflooence. We all know Bethlehem and Jeri- 
cho and Beersheba like we do Boston and Con- 
cord and Lexington and Bunker Hill, and 
there they will remain forever. He rescued the 
birthplace of the Infant Samuel, who was in 
mother' s» Bible Pictures. Ever since she told 
us about Little. Sam, and good old Eli, we've 



WAR BACK NUMBER 143 

felt sore to know that his grave hed come to 
be a source of revenoo to onbelievers, 

Heig and Pershing, Beatty and Sims, may 
have had mo' fightin to do, but readers of the 
paypers kin foller with their «yes shut Allenby 
and his camel-tracks to glory. They kaint do 
that on the Western Front, nearer home but 
still on-familiar. 



Baghdad 

The capture of Bagdad, tlie city of the Kaiser^s 
Wilhelm tbe Second's dream^ the lately realized 
recently attained objective of the Bagdad rail- 
way went farther to show the impotence of the 
German state as colonizing, conquering wor|d- 
nation than any other achievement ofjthe War. 
It was essentially and exclusively a British and 
Irish and India campaign: 1915 and '16 showed 
the characteristic, bulndering nnpreparednesi-— 
not the first time— of Britain in a great war; 
1916 and '17 showed these errors doggedly^ 
bravely, characteristically repaired. Britain^s 
triumph, final and complete, came, igiy-iS. 

Baghdad was, you recall, the seat of the great 
Haroun al Raschid and lovely Zobeide. 

Nov. 10-13, 1914, a British expedition sent 
ont from India, captured Basra city, on a 
bayou (they might qall it in Lousiana) in the 
delta of the Tigris and Euphrates, 55 miles 
inland from the Persian Gulf, a city of 50,000 
Gen. Townshend proceeded up the Tigris in 
1915. The army was imperfectly supplied, and 



BAGHDAD * 145 

it is alleged that at a critical time of the early 
summer the medical service broke down com- 
pletely, causing much unmitigated suffering. 

The transport and supply service were vastly 
inadequate. Guns that were captured by Gen. 
Townsend in '15 were recaptured by the Turks 
in '16, and again captured by Sir Stanley Maude 
in '17. On April 26, 1916, Gen. Townshend 
was compelled to surrender the city of Kut and 
9,000 men to the Turks. 

Aftjr a brilliant strategic campaign, daring 
in conception and carried through to victory 
hardily without a skip or flaw, Sir Stanley and 
his men entered Kut on Feb. 24. 1917. Maude 
surprised the '^ Turks by operating from the 
south ride of the Tigris whence he crossed at 
the Sbumran bend five or six miles upstream 
from Kut,' Gen. MarshalPs left, forcing passage 
over the swollen Tigris under heav3^ fire. At 
Sann yat, down-stream from Kut, Lieut. Gen. 
Cobbe Feb. 23 attacked to distract the enemy, 
developing a hard battle, attacking again 24th. 
Sir Stanley allowed no grass to grow under 
under his feet but kept the Turks going. 

March 11 in a dust storm the British drifted 
into Bagdad, now a city of about 150,000, and 
took possession. 

There was no triumphal entry. 

Sir Stanley Maude had a more than common 
allotment oi the British genius for dealing with 



146 ' BI.UE EYE TO BERLIN 

oriental peoples and religions. He was popular 
in Bagdad from the first, and it was in indulg- 
ing his inclination to gratify the people that 
he met his untimely, lamented death. 

London Times history says the only acco-unt 
of the tragedy is by *'an American writer," a 
guest of Sir Stanley at the Residency, who 
accompanied the General to an entertainment 
given by a Jewish school. The Chief Rabbi of 
Bagdad, "black-bearded, in a white and gold 
or bin? received them ; the headmaster ^f the 
school, "a typical Bagdad Jew, with a French 
education and old-fashioned French manners, 
hovered about and showed his pleasure in the 
occasion.'* At the close a small table was brot, 
**and placed before the Army Commander and 
me, on which were two cups, a pot of coffee, a 
bowl of sugar and a jug of milk. The Ameri- 
can drank his coffee "black," but, being an 
outlander, never thought to caution Sir Stanley, 
who poured into his coffee large quantities of 
the cold^ raw milk. 

lu a few days (Nov. 19) the Army Commander 
was dead of cholera. He was succeeded by Sir 
W.R. Marshall,- who finished ably the task Sir 
Stanley Maude had set himself. A remnant of 
the Turks reached Hamadan, Persia, 300 miles 
east by north. 

The Times history says Sir Stanley's death 
was "a bitter blow to the army, by whom he 
was idolized. He had com^ to Mesopotamia 



BAGHDAD 147 

when the army was at its lowest ebb, and had 
bent himself to the work of reorganization 
thro the succeeding summer, and moved at last 
only when all was perfectly ready, aud finally 
by his genius he had changed the whole face 
of affairs in Mesopotamia. 

King George sent to the Army a telegram 
ot sympathy. Nov. 25 a memorial service was 
held under the new Commander, who had been 
in Sir Stanley's confidence, had been in the 
hardest fighting before Kut, He was bitterly 
bereaved, and sore at the manner of the Army 
Commander's taking-off. 



McCann for Qovernor 
of Palestine 

Via Grapevine Wire (trellis) from Sumwers 
December 14 

Genial, glad-hand toorist-busters is the only 
people who kin make the Holy Land pay. 

Ez soon ez I see that the Rt. Hon. the First 
Lord of the Treasury David Lloyd George hed 
assured Lord Rothschild that Palestine would 
be put under Jewish control, 1 forwards to D- 
Dowuing street a application for a p'ntment ez 
Guvner. I garntee a administration thet will 
knock the spots off the Guvner of Baritaria,the 
Itte Captain-General Pansy. I cal'late a sober 
second thought of each of these great men 'will 
conceiye the advantage of friendly nonpartisan 
(not neutral) control. 

I fear the Himerican missionaries will refuse 
to undertake the conversion of the Guvner and 



McCANN FOR GOVERNOR 149 

staff that might come out from-— Britain. Paul, 
ye mind, took on Festus and Agrippa, but Cai- 
aphas and Josephus he passed up, as too well- 
informed already. 

My platform will be about as follers: 

1. Start to oncct to re-build Solomon's Temple 

using onl}^ union labor; 

2. No restriction on the sidewalk display of 

goods; 

3. Money-changers may use Temple, but only 

before or after banking hours; 

4. Interest charges on commodity or pledge 

loans to be governed by the law of supply 
and demand; 

5. Statue of Thomas Cook at civic center; 

6. Equestrian Gen. Allenby, in Park ben Eli; 

7. Painlins of Lord Reading and Mr. Justice 

Brandeis in the Co't House; 

8. Tooris and Gentiles pertected in free and on- 

restricted expenditure of their money; 

9. In short, for one and all, an open Jerusalem, 

but not a Coney Island or anything cheap. 
There will be no attempt to divert travel 
from Mecca, Rome, Salt Lake, or any other 
Hfoly City. 

As to my own qualifications: 

I hev allers got my clothes of Israelites; 
My great-grandmother was a Catholic; 
I sympathize with the Zionists; 
I am willing to j'ine the Armenians; but 



I 



150 BUTE EYE TO BERLIN 

The Greek Church is stronger in Jerusalem 
And Methodis' in U. S. A. 
Perhaps I better jineBabtis 
But I leave all that to Lloyd-George, said to 
be a Christian and admitted to 'ave the Say. 

xAdv] Jerusalem [Adv 

The Golden 

Clothing House 

$io Suits Reduced — Now 

$37-85 

Why pay more? Trade in Jerusalem 



Uncle Blair's father was a friend of the editor 
of the Fort Madison Plain Dealer Canother 
Wilson) who let him write a article for the 
Plain Dealer oncet in a while. Editor Wilson 
was thin and slim, and wo' spectacles for both 
readin' and lookin. Wilson was U.S.A. Consul 
p.t Jerusalem fur a long spell, and writ »a book 
about the City of David, sooburbs, back kentry 
and adjacent — a standard anthority. 

The Wilson who kept the dry goods store 
seems like was the Consul's brother. He was 
rayther stout and prosperous-appearin. 

At vSpringfield in 1868 they was talk of the 
Universalis' and Unitariums, and Hebrews, 
combinin' to fight Satan, bein' ez how neither 
the Jews nor the Unitariums kin onderstand 



McCANN FOR GOVERNOR 151 

the doctern of the Trinity. And most all the 
Universalis was Ulowed to be Uuitariums ez 
regards the Trinity, in addition. 

[Seems like UniversaH:^' is mo' skeerce now, 
which shows the world is g:rowiu worser and 
mo' in need of future punishment. It was a sad 
day and a crool loss fur Universalism,when Dr. 
Chapin died, of the Church of the Divine 
Paternity. 

Jest the other day I see a letter fromOakland 
sayin a leadin minister [First Congregational] 
hed announced a sermon, tentativ-like, it might 
be about time for a reunion of Catholic and 
Protestant [on a basis of city and county poli- 
tics, mebby.] 

It do seem that now , goin-on two thousand 
years after the Death on the Cross, speshil as 
He said "Forgive them!'' right at the time, 
Jews and Christians may jine hands acrost the 
Holy Sepulchre, and perceeed to make the low- 
lyin valley of the Jordan to blossom like the 
Rose of Sharon, or like a field of fairy Flax, or 
more beautiful yet, a field of Buckwheat in 
bloom, all reinforced with fertilizer from (South) 
Himerica. It is dazzlin and wondrous to see, 
when the cloud shadows chase each other acrost 
a field of flowering buckwheat,* but buckwheat 
and flax is both pow'ful severe on land. And 

*Pcggy — "Buckwheat cakes in bloom! Fine.'' 



ISa BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

tlie Land of the Moabites to flow with milk at 
fourteen cents a quart, and honey at ^fifteen 
cents a pound, like it come in the days of the 
Army Commander, Joshuway, vice Moses 
excluded. 

We git along right nicely with both of the 
Senators from Massachusetts, also with Editor 
of Boston Transcript, spite of theh folks hangin 
Quakers, and all kinds of Noncomformists, a 
heap more recent, —Ben McCann. 

The ''bayou" mentioned on p,i44 is the Shat 
el Arab, into which flow Tigris and Euphrates. 
The Shat empties into Persian Gulf. 



*The California retail price prior to 1916. 
For one day only at 15 cents retail in 1917. 



Bad News from Italy 
Von Hutier Charges 

The victorious progris of our Allies did uot 
perceed as smooth as I cal'lated it wood. My 
friend the Mar-Casey writes me for the first in 
a year. He's sorry, but been so danced busy 
—savin his own hide and his own liberty I In 
October and November he and Gen. Cadorna 
have been shot acrost the Isonzo, the Stabba, 
the Tagliamento, the Zellina, the Sile, the Me-- 
duna and the Piave, with great velocity and 
speed, accompanied by their own noble army, 
and botly pursued by a pow'ful Austro German 
and both armies a-straddle of the Brenta in 
spots. The Mar-Casey says the retreat was 
the worst so fur: the only thing that saved the 
Italian army was the coolness and devotion of 
the men and officers. 

If Germans hed a chanst fur final victory, 
the coming man is Gen. von Hutier. I spelt 
his name Huter in a former letter : have sence 



154 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

diskivvered tbat he is of French descent, may 
be from one of them Huguenots that helped 
to set Berlin ahead, after Looey Quatorze hed 
busted Henri Quatre's pledge and exiled 'em. 
He captured Riga Sept. 5 (19173 and they say 
his campaign was a top-notcher. Then they 
sent fur him to come and drive the Mar- Casey. 
On August 9th, 1916, the latter and Cadorna, 
after a year's efforts took [Gorizia] and the 
Italians kep' pushin theh line steady eastward, 
as well as south towards Trieste. On Oct. 24, 
^17, the Foe started his big drive. Caporetto, 
on the Isonzo, 35 mile north of Gorizia (58 
from Treste) was hit hard, and there the crack 
divisions under von Hutier broke the Italian 
line. Such a rain of shells Caporetto before had 
never seen, nor so dark a smoke-barrage, from 
which emerged, treble quick, the famous "solid 
formation." The Italian Third Army could 
not stand against it, and started for Udine, the 
Italian field headquarter, twenty miles away 
to the rear. On beyond Udine the Third Army 
marched all night, twenty miles more, to stand 
at Tagliamento river. Hence they were forced 
on, twenty miles farther, acrost the Livenza 
and Piave. Venice was in danger, and many 
paintings and statues were sent to Rome. Th^ 
arinies were in the low lagoon-lands, in water 
''up to their necks," for weeks. The campaign 
ended in the same old place, near the eastern 
border of Sette Communi, in late December. 

In November, British, French and American 



VON HUTIER CHARGES 155 

troops came to the assistance of Italy. Gen. 
Cadorna retired to the Allied War Council at 
Paris. He was succeeeded by Gen. Diaz, wlio 
was only 56, aud had entered the war in com- 
mand of a division. 

In March, 1918, the Germans tried vonHutier 
and his system against Sir Douglas Haig and 
Gen. Petain, commanding the British and 
French armies iti Franee. Sir Douglas Haig 
reported to the British army council that he 
had information or that there were indications 
of a determined German attack about March 
20th, directed either against Calais, to cut off 
the British communications with England or 
to interpose between and French armies. The 
latte proved to be the true objective. 

Early in December it had been decided that 
the Allies must confine themselves to the de- 
fensive until the arrival of the Americans in 
sufficient numbers to bring the war to decisive 
swift couelusion. This, stated in the London 
Times history, suffices to justify the tremendous 
force organized in America aud dispatched 
to Europe, 

Between the first of November and the first 
of March, the Germans drew 28 divisions from 
the Eastern front and 6 from the Italian. On 
March 2 1, the Germans had 192 divisions o» 
the line facisg Haig and Petain. The German 
divisions had been reduced from ten to nine 



156 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

regimetits each. Haig's divisions had been 
reduced, each from thirteen to ten battalions. 

The first attack of the Germans March 21 
was between the river Sensee and the Oise, by 
the 23 divisions under von Huticr, whose left 
faced the junction of British and French, 23 of 
40 divisions on the left of the 54-mile line be- 
tween the Sensee aud the Oise. The Fifth 
army, Gen. Gough^ held Haig's right, and the 
Third trmy^ Sir Julian Byng, Haig's left. The 
First army was still nearer Belgium, on Byng's 
left, still farther north. 

As usuftl, the Germans were bountifully sup- 
plied with artillery: 

vou Hutier had 900 A.K.A. or heavy batter- 
ing guns, to destroy trenches, silence big guns. 

1,200 LK.A. or Infantry battering guns, for 
attacking infantry, 480 heavy guns, and a 
large number of trench mortars. 

At the right, next north of Hutier^s twenty. 
three divisions, were eighteen divisions under 
von Below. DeMarwitz commanded Hutier's 
right, von Boehn his left. 

The attacking force comprised four armies 
and sixty-four divisions, and fourteen divisions 
in reserve. 

Arriving troops were detrained some distance 



VON HUTIER CHARGES 157 

behind the lines, for secresy, and the divisions 
marched to the front. 

The bat tie- front of a German division was 
commonly about 2,000 yards, and several lines 
deep, in two battalions; ist, a line with light 
machine guns, each machine man carrying a 
paiabellum pistol, .28; behind this a line of 
infantry; then more machine guns; then bat- 
talion headquarters, with light trench mortars. 

The orders for March 21 were for a general 
attack westward toward Boulogne andAbbeville 
—Von Hutier's 23 divisions attacked: 

II in front, 8 in support, 4 in reserve; 

21 divisions attacked the Fifth army. All ar- 
rivals were timed for the night of March 20; at 
dawn was a general attack on 54 miles of* line 
held by Britisj Fifth and Third army. By 
noon two breaches in the line of the Fifth 
Army. At that (south) end the fighting was 
hard all day. The French Sixth Army, con- 
tinuing eastward the Fifth army's line, was at- 
tacked before dawn. French Sixth army was 
a-ble to send one division (125th) to help Sir 
H. Gough's Fifth army. 

Before 5 a. m. gas and high explosive shells 
rained on the Fifth and Third army from the 
Scarpe to the Oise. By this time says the his- 
torian hitherto quoted (Times): poison gas was 
dispensed only in shells. The bombardment 
was the most furious tkat Sir Douglas Haig's 



158 BLUE EYE TO BKRUK 

army had ever experienced. Gas clouds such 
as were used in '15, were subject to winds, and 
the shells could be thrown much farther. 

All British communications were severed in 
a short time by the bombardment. 

Like the war itself as a whole, every detarl 
of the attack seems to have been programmed 
and arranged for beforehand. The preliminary 
bombardment was to last five hours. 

The creeping barrage began at the time for 
the infantry attack, and was started 330 yards 
in front of the British lines automatically, and 
was put forward 220 yards every four minutes. 
Variations and delays were arranged for. 

Infantry attacks were to be accompanied by 
low-flying airplanes. On the 21st a thick 
white fog favored the German attack. They 
used smoke barrages also, where efficacious. 

The first successes of the Germans were at 
the left and extreme right of the British line. 
The lines were but a ihort distance apart, the 
fire from the A.K.A. guns had beaten down the 
British entanglements, *'and it was a short 
push for the Germans to be in oar weakly- 
held front line." 

At 4 p- m. the Germans captured Quessy at 
British extreme right, but the commander at 
Tergnier defied them. Villeret-Faucon, Hari- 
court on the left, Doignies and Louverval, and 
a few other villages, fell to the Germans. 

At 4 a. m. of the 22d the Germans attacked 



VON HUTIER CHARGES 159 

again. Again a thick mist favored tbera. As 
they came on in massed formation, a French 
officer of the 125th exclaimed: *'What a 
slaughter, if our artillery had been in line ! " 

The French Government ordered their First 
iarmy to be brought up, and placed between 
thf British Third and Fifth armies. 
/'According to Sir Douglas Haig's report, to 
meet the German attack in this battle, the 
British had only one division to each 6,700 
yards of line. 

The Germans took Levegneur at 10 a. m., 
and St. Emilie and Villers the same day. 

At nightfall the Germans captured Pouilly, 
opening a gap between the British 50th and 
6ist Divisions. The Germans poured thro* and 
penetrated the British third defense line near 
Vaux and Beauvais. All the men available 
of the Fifth army had been sent in, and Sir 
Hubert Gough, on the 23d, was compelled to 
retire to bridgehead positions on the Somme, a 
retreat necessitating a night march of 10 or 
12 miles. 

The Germans followied closely, as they had 
followed up every drawing back during the 
battle, and there was sharp rear-guard fighting 
all the way. 

Peronne bridgehead had to be abandoned.-— 
On the 23d, near the junction of the Third and 



160 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

Fifth army, Germans broke the line, and drove 
the British west of Peronne. 

The German Supreme Command that night 
called the battle *'the greatest defeat in history/' 
claimed a gain of 700 square miles.*' "The 
Crown Prince, with the army of von Hueter, 
has forced a passage of the Somme below Hatn. 
Bapaume fell in a night battle. The English, 
French and Americans were thrown back late 
the evening of the 23d." 

Germans took Nesle by storm the 23d. 

The British authority suggests the French 
assistance should have been interspersed among 
the British regiments, That,'*anyway, would 
have slowed down the retreat." 

At dawn on the 24th, Germans entered Bus, 
Lechelle, Le Mesnil, Arrouisse, Rancourt and 
Clery. British had to abandon Bertincourt, in 
drawing back the Third army to line with the 
Fifth army, which had been forced back. 

Von Hutier arrived at the bank of Somme 
south of Peronne, broke the British line, and 
crossed at Pargny, Germans pouring through 
a gap between 8th and 20th divisions. The 8th 
was forced to fall back, and the 20th had a dif- 
ficult retreat to Guiscard. British Sixth cavalry 
division assisted ably. French support was used 
freely. The 9th French division held a line ten 
miles long. On north bank of Somme Germans 
were repulsed. The night of the a4tii and 25th 



CLOSING MONTHS 161 

the fighting was almost continual. 

Tb« Germans took three towns v/est of the 
Libremont Canal. 

Gen. Foch had collected a force of 70,000 in 
the rear of the Sixth army, barring the road to 
Paris. The defense westward was weak, and 
the Germans got within six miles of Amiens. 

-March 23 Berlin claimed that in the three 
days they had captured 25,000 prisoners and 
400 guns and 300 machine guns. March 25 
the Aliies had lost 45,000 men, and 600 guns. 

March 28th Germans took Montdidier. 

The same day the Turkish army in Mesopo- 
tamia was wiped out. On the same date Gen. 
Foch was made commander in chief of all the 
Allied armies. Foch was successful from the 
first: there was never again sucl^ lack of team 
work among the Allies as bad been apparent 
during the Drive toward Amiens. 

On the 29th, its last day, the Germans bul- 
letin claimed the capture of 70,000 prisoners. 
On the ist day of April the British held their 
line at all points. The Drive was ended. 

Gen. Debeney's First army came by train 
from Toul in the Argonne, east by south of 
Verdun, where several American divisions took 
the place of the first army. 

The British writer who described the retreat 
across tho Somme estimated the Americans in 



162 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

France at 220,000 men. These were posted 
mostly east aud south of Rlieims. 

If the British Army Commander had but out 
division to 1,% miles of line, where were all the 
great British leyies of four years ? Scattered in 

every war-zone ? 

April ist the French army chiefs estimated 
the German losses in eleven days at 275,000 to 
300,000 men. 

April I2th Sir Douglas Haig exhorted his 
British: ''All positions, must be held to th« 
last man„" 



Last Weeks 

On April 3d 40,000 Germans landed in Fin- 
land, and on the 13th occupied Helsingfors, the 
capital. 

April 5th, a year after America declared 
war, the United States had under arms, fully 
equipped, 1,500,000 men. 

On the I2d of April, Baron Reichtofeu, one 
of the most brilliant young German aviators, 
with a record of eighty air victories, was killed 
in England. He was buried in London with full 
military honors. 

On the 25th of April, a French division ma- 
neuvered and fought its way into Hangard. 

On the T6th of June reports from Italy were 
to^the effect that tne Italians aided by U, S. A. 
French and British troops, had regained all of 
the places captured by the Austro-Germans, 
except a few points on Piave river. This leaves 
Udine and places on Tagliamento and Isonxo 
rivers still in the grip of Austria. 

On the 25th of April in the Reichtag Gen, 



164 BUTE EYE TO BERLIN 

Ton Risberg reported that on March 24 the 
total Missing from the German armies was as 
follows: 

Total German missing — 664,104 
Of these were the following: 

Prisoners in France — 236,676 

Prisoners in JSngland [Scotland] 119,000 

Prisoners in Russia and Roumania 157,000 

Remainder, probably dead— 161, 428 

vSeemingl}/, Italians took no prisoners. 
No quarter I 

On the 1 2th of July Nicholas II, abdicated 
Czar of Russia, was ninrdered by his guards 
at Ekaterinberg. 

In July the Germans agreed to an exchange 
of prisoners with Britain. Commanders of U~ 
boats (submarines) were not included. 

In the last German drive, on July l8th, the 
city of Soissons fell, with 30,000 prisoners. It 
August, T914, It had been attcked by the Ger- 
mans, ciud had been actually besieged or 
on the firing-line ever si'jce. Rheims, more- 
famous neighbor of Soissons, tlie French were 
) uiaiutaiii possession of throughout the war. 

Soissors was the Enemy's last Cnpture in 
France, May 30, 1918. (Allie:^ regained Soissons 
July 1 8.) In this drive GermaLS penetrated to 



CLOSING MONTHS 165 

a few miles nearer Paris tban they had been 
able to proceed in August, 1914, but few were 
those nearer miles indeed. The March of- 
fensive had shown the German army still 
strong enough to make headway against the 
British and French. In the June-July cam- 
paign the Americans were given an important 
sharefof the fighting, their fif-st serious work in 
quantity. 

The German commanders reported that the 
Americans were not inferior to the more vet- 
eran allies. At that date were 2,ooo,coo U.S.A. 
troops equipped and under arms. More than 
a million American soldiers were now in France 
and a million nior* would be in Europe as the 
transports were able to biing them. America 
had at her command a transportation service 
gneh as h*d never for capacity been approached 
— never bi^fore had a third as many men been 
transported so far at sea. 

In the nineteen months from the Declaration 
of War, April 6, 191 7, to the Armistice Nov. 
iL, 1918, the Army sent to Europe 2,075,834 
men and 5,153,000 dead-weight tons of cargo for 
the Army the Embarkation service. Somewers 
about one-half the ships used in this service 
wer€®5Uy>ii€fby the shipowners and Govern- 
ment of Britain. 

The Army, until recently proportionately the 
smallest in the world, was increased to be one 



166 BLUB BYB TO BERLIM 

of the most numerous and best equipped. The 
number of men in the Army June i, Sept. i and 
Nov. I, 1918, was as follows: 

In U.S. and Possessions In Europe Total 

June I, 1918 1,390,000 722,000 2,112,000 

Sept.i , , 1,425,000 1,576,000 3,001,000 

Nov, I 1,^72,000 1,993,000 3,665,000 

[World Almanac] 

If need be, our army in Europe could be 
increased from Two Millions (without making 
such effort as France and Germany had already 
made, without taking one man older than 31) 
to Three Millions, from men fully armed and 
equipped; organized, ready to embark. 

A British estimate placed the losses of Sir 
Douglas Haig's command from March 26 to 
May, at 250,000. 

April 1 8th, 15 French planes dropped tons 
of bombs on the German bivouacs in vicinity 
of Ham, Guiscard and Noyon. 

June 9-12 the German drive between Noyon 
and Montdidier netted 15,000 prisoners and 150 
guns. 

On June 15, Gen, March reported 800,000 U. 
S. troops in France. 

On July 16, Herbert Hoover said that U.S.A. 



CLOSING MONTHS 167 

gent $1,400,000,000 of food to the Allies during 
the year. 

On the 20th of July the American troops 
had taken 17,000 prisoners and 560 guns. 

On June 10 Berlin claimed capture of 75,000 
prisGuers np to May 27 in west front. 

July 24 the total German losses since the 
beginning of Foch's drive are alleged at 180,000. 

Aug, 5 American troops land at Archangel. 

Aug. 28th the Americans and Allies in the 
last eight weeks captured 102,000 prisoners and 
1,300 guns. 

Aug. 28th French recapture Roye. 

Ang.31. — British capture Mt. Kemmel. 

On Sept. 7th t]]e Germans began a general 
retreat on a. loo-mile line from Arras-Cambrai 
to Rheims, British advanced nine miles from 
ihe Somme. 

Sept. 22 Allenby advanced beyond Nazareth, 
taking 18,000 prisoners. 

Oct. I.— Allenby captures Damascus and 
7,000 Turkish troop». Since Sept. 20 Allenby 
marched 150 miles, captured 58,000 prisoners, 
destroyed three Turkish arnnes; He left the 
great aid famous city in the keeping of its old 
officials, whose loyalty to the Sublime Porte 
had failed sometimes, and marched westward 
to Beirut, a seaport that is much nearer both 
Damascus and Bagdad than is Constantinople 



168 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

or Smyrna. HenceBeirat's great promise. Gen. 
Allenby advanced from Damascus Oct. 5, and 
occupied Beirut three days afterv/ard, taking 
15,000 more prisoners, ^'making 71,000, besides 
8,000 claimed by tSe Arab army." 

In October, 1919, commemorating 
Allenby's return to England, London 
Punch pictured him in armor, upon a 
sturdy English mount, as The New 
Crusader: 
"Singing from Palestine, Hither I come. 
Lady love, lady love,welcome me home. 

Britannia— I do indeed, with all my heart ! 



"For he {% an English man" made Allenby 
still more dear to the heart of London. 

It was on the 30th of Ma}/, Decoration Day 
in America, that Germans captured Soissons. 
July 18 the city was retaken by the Allies. On 
July 19 the Germans recrossed the Marne in 
retreat towards the Rhine. 

Oet. 6. Germans retreat on a 38-mile front 
in Champagne. On the same day, Germany^s 
new Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, asked 
President Wilson to aid in restoring peace. 

Oct. 10 British take Cambrai, and twe days 
later Servians recapture Nish. 

Oct. 16, British cross the Lys headed toward 



CLOSING MONTHS 169 

the Rhine instead of westward as formerly. 

On Oct. 17 the Allies entered Bruges, Lille 
and Ostend, and the Germans retresited from 
the Belgian and French front from the North 
Sea to the river Sambre. 

Oct. 22 the British cross the Scheldt north 
of Tournai. 

In the four days ending Oct. 25 the Allies 
took 15,000 prisoners. The German killed 
and wounded totaled 50,000. 

Hungary agrees to all peace terms of the 
Allies including Czecho-Slovak and Jugo-SIo- 
v:ik independence. 

Oct. 31. Italians advanced in 54 divisions. 

Nov.i. Socialist republic was proclaimed in 
Vienna. 

Nov. 3 the Italians occupy Trent. 

King Albert enters Oudcnarde and Ghent. 

Austria accepts Armistice terms with imme- 
withdrawal from North Sea-Switzerland line. 
Half of equipment to be surrendered, 

Nov. 5. Pershing advances on both banks of 
the Meuse. 

Nov. 7 — Americans capture Sedan. 
Nov. 9. Kaiser William II abdicates and re- 
tires lo Holland. 

Herr Ebert becomes German chancellor. 



17j blue eye to BERLIN 

Nov. lo—Kiiig Wiliam II of Wuertemburg 
abdicates. 

Vienna andNeustadt airplane hangars burn. 

Victor Irnmainiel of Italy makes triumphal 
entry into Trieste. 

Nov. 1 1. Germans sign Armistice at Scnlis. 

On the day of the Armistice, the Grand Duke 
cf Mecklenbugrg Schwerin abdicated, Grand 
Duke of Oldenburg was dethroned^ Each was 
ftcompoiient of the passing German Empire.-- 
On that day also, Field Marshal von Hinden- 
urg placed himself and the army at the disposal 
of the new German Republic. 

King Friedrich- Augustus of Saxony was de- 
throned that day. 

On the first day of December th® Americans 
crossed into (Rhenish) Prussia at Treves. 

The British advanced toward the Rhine at 
Cologne. 

On the 2d of December, King Nicholas of 
Moulenegro was dethron^^d by the skupbhtina. 
Nicholas was father of the Queen of Italy, 
consort of Victor Immanuel II. 

Dec. 3. Americans under Gen. Pershing took 
up a line of six miles with Coblantu in center, 
at the confluence of the Moselle tnd Rhine. 

Dec. 8 Gen.Petain became Marshal of France. 



George, Albert, Raymond 

His Excellene}^, the Presideut of the French 
Republic, come down ihis-away quite recent to 
hold a inspection. M. Poincare ou view fr/ilers 
the mode of Abram Lincoln and wear*; a plug 
hat (Lincoln called it a stove-pipe — same as top- 
hat amorg our allies in London. He looks good 
in it, but better yet in the cap he wears when 
prowlin round the aidges. Our great Hm-nici- 
pator never looked nio^ awkVd thsii when he 
come !n 1862 to visit the Army of the Potomac 
and they put him on a middlin strong but low- 
set horse so the President wouldn't '^It hurt if 
the horse throwei him, so Abram's No. 12 hoofs 
'd clear the grcun3 by ten inches. Fact is, ole 
Abe could slick on a horse as good as most of 
the cavalry/. The stove-pipe was mos' tremenjis 
high— the same danged hat he used to k-. rry 
his law- papers and letters and jack-knife in, out 
in Springfield. 

British House of Common;* is the oh'cet 
livin exampler of legislative Power, the Roman 
senate havin' gone out of busiijess some time 
sence. The craze for precedent rajsed a l,<,st of 



172 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

imitators.^ Yon all have see how funny was the 
eftorts of 'sundry Himericans to make our Cab- 
inet comprise the majority leaders and prize 
orators, but both our houses persisted in sendin 
fur cabinet ministers and exaniinin like bank 
clerks or army contractors. Our Cabinet rep- 
resents only the President and pays no special 
attention to Congress. 

The French hed see thet to make a Cabinet 
pow'ful they'd hev to cut off tha President as a 
party. So M. Poincare is non-partisan and has 
not many active duties: He holds the reins, 
but holds 'em easy when one Cabinet goes oat 
till the 'other comes. Other times, he shows 
hisself to the people, entertams/makes speeches 
of, occasion and the like, and does as much like 
a King of England [Scotland and Ireland] as a 
Frenchman kin. He gits a lot mo' salary than 
the Premeer, and usual holds ^he job longer. 
The President is elected fur seven years; but 
I doubt if the French cabinets sence 1872 have 
lasted seven mouths on an aver^'ge. M. Cle- 
men ceau has held now since Nov. 13, '17, To 
make an active PVench statesman President is 
right smart like kickin a leader of the House 
of Ccnimons up into the House of Lords. 

Fur some time, before he got took as Pre- 
meer, M. Clemen ceau bad been runnin on his 
newspaper a sarcastic sub-heading ** The Man 
Chained." I bet liis L'Homnie Libre is chained 
tighter now tnan tver before. 

Why, it 'got So long sence in Britain a leader 



KING GEORGE, KING ALBERT 173 

of the opposition hed to be as keerful most as 
the Premeer 'bout keepin his mouth shet. The 
sure way to learn the 'British S3'Stem is to go 
aver the bumps like the British done long ago 
and is still doin. 



Kings George and Albert appeared in uni- 
form. Albert still works at bein King, least- 
ways while the War lasts; but George's Hera- 
pire is too vast; he has to content hisself with 
a general overseein. George looks to me like 
he'd make a good commander-Jn-chicf ef he had 
the chanst. The quiet way he listens when 'is 
Generals is 'splainin things minds me of Gen. 
Grant, minus (leastwa3/s in public) Grant's ci~ 
caf. Perhaps, when they're in the royal tent 
or wicky-up 

Beside Meade, Thomas, Hooker, Sherman, 
Hancock, Burnside, Logan, Rawlins, Grant 
seemed small. Ore day in peace time Napo- 
leon reached fur a book on a shelf. One of his 
Marshals obtained the book and gave it to the 
Emperor, 

*'P4rdon, I am taller than your Majesty." 

Napoleon eyed him stern. "You are longer," 

True, King George wis trained fpr the 
Navy. So was Admiral Blake trained iar the 
Army. GeorgcII fit well, and no Scot dreamt of 



174 BLUE EYK TO BERLIBT 

of fightin Xht English after George II's ad 
son, Cumberland. 

Uncle Blair's poem, which I jest sec^ shows 
the origin of Kings, all fighters to start with: 

The drudging Tasks by great men shirked 

Were not escaped without^a fi;2fht 
Then they, while their companions worked, 
• Slept safely, soundly, thro the night. 

Then folks let 'im be King, perferrin to work 
rayther than fight any more. 

Albert, to borrow the phrase of a best scllt;r, 
is^ generally well-liked. To my eye he is very 
Chermin in appearance ef he was the man who 
gave the bu^le-call that brought in Britain 
and U. S. A. and sounded the keynote of the 
war that upset the Chermin empire, and sent 
adrift the Hohenzollerns. 

His folks of course come from Saxe-Coburg- 
Gotha, which is a good part of Doychland, alias 
Germany. His grandfather was the first King 
of Belgium, and his great uncle Albert married 
Queen Victories. 

Albert's^ uncle 1^, Leopold II, was the best 
business man that ever wore a crown at home 
and a top-hat in Paris. Bdginm was prospris, 
and done a big biznez fur one of her size, wa'nt 
taxed so heavy as some fur the Army, and 
was Dooley envied by her neighbors. When 
war come it cost like fury, s© prudent Albert 



KING GEORGE, KING ALBERT 175 

worked at bein' king hisself to save the liire 
of one bar-tender. Albert is the only royal 
suvrin that rides habitual in the airy plane, 
and hez the skill to run his own plane. En- 
durin the war, he done any kind of man's 
work, from commandiu a brigade to holdin a 
council of War. He suffered equal privations 
with his tn«n, and is a truly soldier. 

If looks were all, King George 'd do fine fwr 
a President. A: top-hat becomes him great, and 
fits his figgcr better- 'n Leopold's did his. 



Historic Belgium 

This war, somehow, with it smoke barrages: 
khaki, we kind o' miss the brass buttons, the 
bright blue uniforms and flashin bay'nets of 
old times. 

One hot night in July, '63, old Grandmother 
Reinhart was dreamin of the time she was a 
girl in Clarion county. She drempt she was a- 
makin peach-butter. A noise in the big road 
woke her up, and she looked out the winder. 
Fur up the big road, fur ez her old eyes could 
see, shimmered and shon® the bright muskets 
of A. P. Hill's corps, goin back to ole Virginny 
after the shindy at Gettysburg; She looked 
fur quite a spell. *'I 'How that's the war Isaac 
was telliu' about yesterday, when he brung 
in Gov. Curtin's handbill rousin tht men 
folks to expel the invader." 

Hill's corps was famous for "bright muskets 
and ragged uniforms." 

No mo' bright muskets in this war anymore. 



HISTORIC BELGIUM 177 

Even the bayonets are blued dull. You could 
git ino' fight! n them days fur a dollar than ye 
kin this war fur ten dollars. 

Ef itwan^t fur the on-parallelled high cost of 
this war, the big raise in the price of smokin' 
tobacco, flour, and other on dispensable neces- 
saries, lots of round-hyah folks wouldnt allow 
it is much of a war. 

In 187 1 they was a fight at Hornet's Nest 
spelling school consarnin Lanningham's New 
Departure. Bill Jasper was a witness. Jedge 
Purdy questioned Bill: 

**Did yo' see de fi^ht, Misteh Jaspeh?" *'No. 
'' Did yo' hear de fight ? '' *^No, suh." 
" Did yo' smell de fight ? " *'No, suh." 
'^ Vo' kin step down, Misteh Jaspeh." 

[Clement L. V&llandigham was one of the ex- 
treme peace Democrats or Copperheads. When 
a candidate for Governor of Ohio in 1863 he 
was one ef a few anested and sent thro the 
lines. In 1871 he astonished the country by 
promulgating a **New Departure." Under it the 
Democrats were urged to accept the results of 
the war, ihb XIII, XIV and XV Amendments, 
with Freedom, Equal right?, and the Ballot for 
the Negro. A few weeks Ister, in hia home city 
of Dayton he was defending in court a fellow 
citizen accused of murder. His theory was the 
corpus delicti or victim accidentally had shot 
himself He was rehearsing before his colleague 



178 BLUE EYB TO BE^LIM 

endurin tlie noon recess, when the pistol went 
off and writ *'The End" to his Life. He was 
toe anxious and literal a illustrator. He wa'nt 
goin* to give that jury no room for a reasonable 
doubt. lallers/Uowed hejiued the Copperheads 
as a Adv.(Patriots was thicker in '63) and I 'How 
the same of his New Departure of '71. It was a 
good one and set our Clement in the spot-light 
once mo' fur a few days. Horace Greeley writ 
a signed editorial about it. Had Horace left 
it out, also oue about the KuKlux, and one on 
the Twelfth of July riots in New York, he'd 
of run better fur President the next year. 

Clement was some of a' Humbug. Greeley 
[P.T. Barnum, Ben, he was] said Himericans 
like to be humbug-fed. Had Clement lived he 
might of been Guvner of Ohio yet 1 (That is 
wot Clement run fur in '63) but A Man I know 
from Ohio, says it wan't likely. 



Yc see, 'taint like when Abe Lincoln 'd give 
War Democrat like Logan a fur-low to make a 
lot of speeches fer Abe's re-election and raise a 
new regiment, and whoqp 'er up generally. A 
stranger 'd p'int: That man with the ebon mane 
and square shoulders, tawny epidermis, with 
shoulder-straps, is our highest volunteer non- 
West P'inter General--t:.ie one who rid his 



KING GEORGE, KING ALBERT 179 

charger down the battle-line befo' Atlanta, past 
the whole front of the Army of the Tennessee 
shoutin: 

'' McPherson and Revenge '* 

Then they both 'd in-list. 

The dark, squar' General was John A.Logan. 



British bninbarded Ostend. Ostend means 
cast end, blit is truly the west end of Belgium. 
Mebby its the east end of the Atlantic Ocean. 
Queen Victoria was a good friend of Leopold I. 
as a man and Chris-tiau, but not of Leopold II, 
whom she dtefUJc^d at times improper, flirtin 
and carry in-on with actresses. She would of 
liked KiKg Albert, Albert wps named in honor 
of her own imforgotten Albert. He is strong 
and healthy, and has no bad habits, that is none 
yc kin decipher in a King, 

Belgium, at the resk of .^^a^n'n at the wrong 
tinje, aint got uo sich recrrd as a historic, icde- 
perdciit nation like lrek;nd fur icstauce. The 
Daik and twilight Ages pervided fur Kiiinanity 
no Woodrow WiJsou: Locne to in?ijt that Bel. 
giuni should determine her seU. Outsiders did 
the determinin,m.ostly outside Kings. In short, 
serice Rcme Declined the ncmins^tion and Fell, 
Belgium has been iLe fcotball of wairm furrin 



180 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

suvrins^ the tradin stock of international con- 
ferences, 

From first to last, Belgimn Has had three 
Kings, compairin with Ireland^s seventy thous- 
and; but these three all were able men. 

Fur ages bothBelgium and Holland war' both 
known as the Low Coontries or Netherlands. 
Twas Religion that split 'em up the back; folks 
in Holland ready to tear a hole in the levy, 
or open the dikes rather, to let the sea in and 
drownd the Spaniards out. Belgians took a biz- 
nez rather than religious view, ez how the^ca'd 
on-fit the land fur oats too all-fired many years. 

Up in Skagit county, Wash., is places ye kin 
still discern wot salt water will do- to Oats. So 
Belgium sides, long years ago, for Spain, and 
aginst the stubborn Reformed Dutch ancestors 
oi Stuyvesant Fish and Robert B. Roosevelt. 
From 1633 Belgium was held by. Spain, and 
known as The Spanish Netherlands. At the 
tail-end of Marlbro^s wars, Louis Fourteen after 
so many lickins still got in Philip of Bourbon, 
liis candidate for King of Spain, which was wot 
King William went to war about. But William 
was dead, the Man in London Street had no mo^ 
affection fur his memory than has a New York 
City crowd on the Twelfth of July. So Beljim 
was handed over to William's ally, Austria, 
without any determinin. ^ Maria Theresa, lik« 
Victoria, had a big fambly, but a fine lot of 



KING GEbRGE, KING ALBERT 181 

men to work for her. She sent to Belgium her 
husband^s brother, Charles of Lorraine, "the 
Good Governor,^' who held his job fur forty 
year. He died in 1780, jest ahead of the Em- 
pris Queen. Like other good Governors, none 
other kin wield Excalibur. Maria T.made few 
reforms, but hers went; her son Joe begun a 
hull batch to once. Joseph failed teetotally, the 
Belgians revolted, and they was liades in Flan- 
ders. France, afterjemappes, i792,coramandered 
the hull kentry and kep^ it till 1814, when it 
was handed back to Austria, agin without no 
determinin. 

Kologne, Knssel, Koblentz all near, is hard 
on the cap. k box of Cologne Gazette as Berke- 
ley and Oakland used to be on the p'tit k box. 

In 18 15, Congress of Vienna figgered it out 
mo' keerful, and jined together Holland and 
Belgium with William of Holland King of the 
United Netherlands. 

The French revolution of 1830 biled over into 
Belgium, ketehi»n onpreparcd King William of 
Orange. A conference in London ap'inted Le- 
opold of Saxe Coburg, brother of Victoria's 
mother, first King of the Belgians. The Dutch 
King balked fur eight year, then ♦yielded. King 
Wm.IV of Britain agreed to squar' Holland by 
marryin Victoria to the Dutch King's younger 
son; Victoria balked and aided by Leopold, de- 
layed negotiations till she her^^elf was Queen. 
Whenever she had time she writ Leopold, reit- 



Ig2 BLUB KYB TO BERLIN 

aertia, tbankin "him fur pullin off her marriage 
to Cousis Albert 

Belgium's neutrality was guaranteed bj 
treaty, but when bis spies reports them Eastern 
fortf impregnable, the Kaiser says: 

*' Necessity is tlie Mother of Invasion. 

We will go to Paris by way of Brussels, then 
hire some clever Himerican to justify us to 
Beljim and Jthe on-civilized world. 



Coblentz to Weimar 

Koblentx, occupied by Himericans, is one-Qtli 
the size of Kocln, or Cologne, occupied by the 
British, 65,000 to 600,000, due to tbe demaxad 
for eau-de-Cologne in Himerican towns of l«s« 
'n 5,000. I'd rather live in a 65,000 town than 
in a 600,000 — I like to know and speak to cv- 
erybody,which I kaint do to 600,000. 

Greeks and Cherm ns Lookup K rather than 
put a r^ng-tail on C. 

K for Greeks and C for Romans, 
Seein* ez how theyre idem sonans. 

Coblentz is important bekaze it commands the 
Mos«lle valley tkat taps France,which it pen- 
trates a hundred mile.Y© kin go by steamboat 
117 mi. to Treves, then walk, or by rail all the 
way. Koeln was the Roman Colonia, Coblentz 
the Roman Confluencia. Rhine and Moselle 
confluence at Coblentz. Cross the Rhine bridge 
of boat* end climb Karenbreitstein *'Rock o{ 
honor (fariious) abroad," rising 400 feet ab«ve 
the rivcT. Betweea iUiIue and Moselle the city 



1S4 BLUE EYB TO BERLIN 

is a rcgler triangle. A statue of Wilhelm I. at 
its apex iiiEhrer! breitstein's (rown, trans-Rhine. 

A suburb of Kassel is Wilhelmshohe, wheh 
Nap. Ill was kep' prizner in '70. It is right 
pretty, and they guv the Eniperer lot mo' to eat 
than the prizners gits this war. 

Thirty-six mile from Cassel, on root to Han- 
nover, which Chermins spell with two n's, is a 
fine old varsity city, Goettingen: 

Whene'er with haggard eyes I view 

-This dungeon I am rotting in, 
I think of those companions true 
Who studied with meat the U- 
niversity of Gottingeti. 
George Canning, premier of Britain, writ that. 

I had a notion the Chermin varsities all was 
powful old: 83 years ago varsity of Gottingen 
wan^t half as old as Harvard, 200, Gotti^ngngg. 

Ever sence I read Goodrich's School History 
of the battles of Long Island. and Brandy winej 
Ich bin hoss-style to Chermins from Cassel and 
That solid formation did us in both battles. If 
Gen. Washington felt like me he didn't let on. 
He knowed they come from the finest part of 
Cherminland, so be located the prizners he got 
at Trenton on good Pennsvlvany Doych farms. 

The Fathers of the new Chermin republic 
emulated him in iixirg iheh Capital in the 
little pleasant 34,000 city of W eimar. They 
are mo' comfortable than was John Adams in 
the newU.S. A. capital: no lights, no sidewalks, 
ito picture blays, and the cow not coming up 
nights, not half the lime. — B. McCaim. 



Leipzig 

Had Thebes a hundred Gates— 
As sung by Homer ? 

I kaint say sure but this I know: 

Leipzig had 200 printn' offises 

Or one to every 2,400 folks. Some of 
'em were bigger shops than the Blue 
Eye Banner's.. Per capita, anyway, 
it was was the great bookprintin town 
of the world. A book that PaulElder 
would charge $500 fur, ye could git 
published in Leipzig for $469 flat. Ye 
see they hadn't no 8-hour day in Leip- 
zig, and compositors didn't set type to 
the air of Deutschland ueber AUcs. 
They used that to drink beer by, to or 
mit — on Sundays. 

One of the bravest of all the braver 



!£6' BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

kuights of the iron cross who fell in 
the 1914-19 war was Karl Baedeker. 
The war didn't show it, for Karl was 
killed in its first battle. All them rcd- 
kivvered books Himericans used to lug 
around Europe (Asia and Egypt)come 
from his store. When Paw would git 
reckless. Daughter 'd git out the red 
book and p'int out this: 

''Make ^ bargain before you em- 
ploy anybody in this town.'* 

And his books said that oftener in 
Germany than in any other kentry. 
He hed the sand to staud by his koo- 
staymers. Folks made fun of his too- 
ris, but the best Books of Travel got 
their local color from the red books. 

At Leipzig 106 years ago this Oct, 
16-19, Napoleon felt some iikeWilhlm 
II of same date 1918- The battle con- 
tinued four days, the longest on record 
befo' this war. Ke had 140,000 men, 
of w^hom 50,000 were killed, wounded 
or disfiggered useless and helpless or 
total wrecks— against 300,000 Allies 
(Russia, Prussia, Austria). Saxony 
and Bavaria fit under Napoleon, who 
went right on home with his 90,000. 
On the Kronberg (eastLeipzig) is the 
Napoleonstein, the rock on which Na- 



LEIPZIG 187 

poleon stood, with his arms folded and 
bat on crossways, and watched the de- 
cisive third day of the battle. The big 
Battle Monument is handy-by. 

I jest see Uncle Blair's story-book: 
one place he says a French soldier gits 
lo cts a day; he gits only about 5c; at 
the Month-End he has 37c left. Brit- 
ish soldier gets 48 cts, 12 cts left. The 
Himcrican gets a dollar: 10 cts left. 
•» 

No deep plots in Uncle's stories and 
none in Dickens, Balzac, or Thackry. 
Anna Katherine Green has all four of 
em beat bad fur exciting plots. 

Uncle plans to put out an American 
Comedy, not less than i of evry kind 
of people: i doctor, i lawyer, i soldier, 
I Quaker preacher, i fine lad}^, etc. 

I write Leipzig, not Leipsic, to show 
I am a Chermin scholar. 

Uncle Blair studied Chermin a few 
weeks with a Swiss preacher, who con- 
fessed he didn't pernounce well — too 
many French in his can-tone. He 
said the best Chermin was spoke in 
Saxe-own (Sachsen, Saxony) and Ber- 
lin (Preussen). Dresden and Leipzig 
are in Sachsen. I cal'lated Leipsic 



im BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

and Dresden were not mo' then eleven 
mile apart. Lfind it's 74 mile by R, 
R. from Leipzig to Dresden, and only 
lOi to Berlin. 

So Berlin cotnes next. —B.McC. 



Dresden 

Before I started for Berlin, I looked 
into an ancient Baedeker and read of 
Dresden, "the beautiful environs, the 
magnificent art gallery," and when I 
saw a ^'considerable English colony 
resides here, I hadnt the Hart to give 
Dresden the go-by. 

For years after, Vd Icelch myself 
frettin thet lid been wnthin Seventy- 
five mile of the golden statue of Fame 
sixteen foot high, and I never see it. 

This statue is on top of the cupalo 
of the Exhibition building of the Ac- 
ademy of Art. The picture collection 
is great, but it's souie centuries sence 
Dresden was at the top fur pictur^- 
pjiinters of her own. 

The King's palace is fine. It got on 
fire in 1701, when it was 170 years old 
and Augustus the Strong was King. 
Marshal Saxe; who led the Irish and 
French to victory at Fontenoy, was a 
natural son ofAugustus. Kings^hav* 



190 BLUE BYE TO BERLIN 

frequently unnatural sons, like Absa- 
lom. The Marshal had several natural 

brothers and half-brothers -sisters 

and half sisters. 

Augustus was a taller, larger man 
than Samson, who kerried off the gates 
of jGaza, and is said to have been 
stronger. Augustus could of lifted 
the Gate of Hades off its hinges, but 
Frederick the Great was able to ''lick" 
mo' people. 

How big was Frederic H, Dad, 
That people called him great ? 

When I see Dresden is 74 mile from 
Lcipsic, I cal'lated it must be up high. 
It is only 370 feet above the level of 
the ocean by which Garfield said all 
heights are measured. 

Leipsic is 15-foot higher ^n Dresden, 
on the historic Elbe. Leipsic is set 
out on a big perairy, near 3 comparative 
on-known rivers: Pleisse,Parhte,Elster. 
Dresden has about 450,000 population 
— Leipsic about 500^00. — B. 



Low or High? 

At first thought a ciTilian if he h^d 
the choosing would take the up-hill 
side in a battle, and push the lower 
enemy down. Lookout and Missionary 
Ridge both were wen by the climbing 
army. To be above is easier on the 
"wind.^^ On June 6, 1916, Austrians, 
axter driving the Italians from A*iago, 
a tacked Mt. Lemerle, three miles 
south, and on the morning of 8th, they 
carried the top of the mountain. An 
Italian brigade, retreating down the 
mountain, when part-way down, stopt 
on a bench or ledge on the southwest 
corner of the mountain and hurg on, 
and the Austrians were unable to dis- 
lodge tnem, and after a few days the 
Austrians went away. Many of the 
^^g guiis with which they had swept 
the top of the mountain, they were 
not able to bring to bear on the troops 
part- way down. 

We Republicans used to denounce 



192 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

the ^'Cobden club," years ago, for but- 
ting intoAmerican political campaigns 
with ^'British gold." In his lifetime 
on the other hand, Richard Cobden 
(who was not a rich man, though the 
club was) was addicted to praising of 
things American. At a time when 
Americans were ashamed of our shirt- 
sleeve diplomatists, Cobden asserted 
that ours were superior to those of 
England and Europe (in a letter to 
John Bigelow). This he thought, was 
because our foreign service was drawn 
from the whole body politic, not from 
one dog-cared, moth-eaten, blazzy 
class. [Our adjectives.] 



The Jury often showed the big rise 
began Oct.1916. A last months state- 
ment sets it back to '14. Says high- 
grade clothing increased 93 per cent, 
cheap clothing 13 per cent. Must be a 
typic error; overall that sold for 75c, 
brings $1.49, $1.50 and $1.75 now. 



A Giant's Growth 

Berlin is rno' cosmopolitan than I 
cxcctcd to find so fur from the front- 
car of other civilized nations. The 
nanjc, to bej^ia with, is of Slavic an- 
cestry. If Louis Quatorze (which is 
French fur 14) ciidu't teetotly cripple 
France when he brake HenryOuatre's 
pledge to the Huguenots, it wan't hi» 
fault if it did benefit other nations 
but because France hid a on-common 
supply of artist-artisans still adherin 
to the older faith. The Exiled ones 
were a pow'ful boost fur London, Am- 
sterdam and Berlin, Last-named was 
so much snialler, the imported Hugue- 
nots showed up mo' in the ore bizucz 
street than in Amsterdam, cvcu. 

Up to 170 r wot was, ontil Nov. 10, 
1918, the Kingdom of Prooshy went 
b3^ rhe name of the Mark of Branden- 
burg. In them days Brmudenbug had 
p lot mo' denizens than Berlin: a mark 
bejn the domain of a Margrave. This 



194 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

margrave called liisself the Elector of 
Brandenburg ez Iiott he had a vote at 
the election of one of the make-believe 
f©rmer-tim€ iigger-head German Emp- 
erers. His people, bis creditors, and 
Posterity, called himThe Great Elector, 
He was ambitious only fur his kentry. 

They thrice presented him a kingly 

crown. 
Which he did thrice refuse. 

His successor, Frederic IH, was vainer 
and became Fredk I., King of Prooshy, 

[At the time America had a Fort 
Dodge editor (Roberts) for Superin- 
tendent of the Mint (Mints, as they 
ought to say, for there were several — 
at Dahlonega, Carson City, Philadel- 
phia, New Orleans and SanFrancisco) 
in fact up to 191 5, a Mark was worth 
in Berlin some Twenty Cents. Unlike 
most other it didnt git no higher en- 
durin the War. The coin, also the on- 
paper Mark, was named in honor of 
the Mark of Brandenburg. 

The greatest thing Fredric William 
(the Great Elector) like King Albert 
of Belgium, ever did was to marry a 
handsome and sensible Bavarian girl: 
a Princess. She and he liked to coddle 
the infant Berlin. They never moved 



A GIANT'S GROWTH 195 

to Berlin, but 'd drive tbe forty mile 
often to buv pretty French tbif^g^s at 
the sbops. 'The Elector died 1688, tke 
year of the English RevOiUtion. In 
his time Berlin gro wed from 3,178 to 
20,000. But from 1871 to 1901 Berlin 
beat all Kumpe: 

1740 1840 1871 1875 

90,000 331,895 826.000 966,858 
180 1 — 172,000 1910—2,071,259 

The Great Elector planted the row 
of lime tree5^(double)fAmous 200 years 
afterward, ihe Unter dtn Linden. 

In my mind's «ye I kin see th« 
old Elector, jest turnin' sixty, diggin' 
the holes, and the Margravine Doro- 
thea pattin' with her i^iender, shapely, 
high bred little hands, the dirt 'round 
the roots of the Linden. 

His succesor, King Frederick I., 
removed the royal residence to Benin 
— wearin a metal crown at times. 

Tiie famous park, the Thierga iters, 
has onl}^ one-sixth the arcs of E'air- 
mount Park, Philadelph}-, and iibout 4 
fourth that of Golden Gate park. It 
is big enough to hold Berlin's two mil- 
lions and give ten square feet per 
person. 

Folks from abroad enter Berlin jest 
the same as Napoleon did, or the Great 
E'itctor liis&tlf for that, thro the 
garten, thtn enter XJnter den Lin 



196 BLUE »YK TO BKRLIK 

thro the Bmndenburg Gate, a, grand 
sandstone portal, 305 wide, and 85 foot 
high. The Quadraga of Victory that 
surmoumts the Gate was kyart«d off 
to Paris in 1807, but the Prussians 
brung it back to Berlin in 18 14. The 
Gate has five passages, Entrances or 
Sorties, separated by Doric columns. 
Here bc|^ins Unter df^n Lind«n and 
runs E.N.E for about a mile to the 
gate of the royal palace. Two thirds 
of the way in is the statue of Frederic 
the Great. When Napoleon entered 
Berlin, Oct. 24, 1806, he stopped in 
front of Frederick the Gr^it's sutue 
on theLinden and lined up his staff to 
pay respect to^ld WarriorFritz. All 
presented the p'ints of their naked 
swords, advanced to the base of the 
statue in perfect line, rapidly, then 
backed away. A bit of stage-play, not 
badly enacted. 

Frederick the Great spent little time 
in Berlin, yet built up the city more 
thaia any other King. 

i\s he rode his white horse that day 
along the Linden, Napoleon's face was 
strangely sour. The King and lovely 
Queen Louise had been sent to a safe 
retreat by Prince Hatzfelt His fambly 
is roomered to 've invented felt hats I 
The Prince came humbly and srend'rd 
Berlin. ^'Go to your estate," ordered 



A GIANT'S GROWTH 197 

Napoleon angrily. In tlie street parade 
Napoleon set upon his White Horse 
like a sceptered Misog^^nist. After the 
parade Napoleon was takin' off his 
spurs at noontime to wash up for din- 
ner; he told his Chief of Staff to order 
a court martial fur that evening, and 
have Hatzfclt shot. Marshal Lan- 
frey and others pertested warmly that 
Hatzfeldt hadn't done nothin but stan' 
by his suvrin. ^*We got to *kcer 'era 
right from the start," rej'ined the 
Emprer. ^'That's wot I told my broth- 
er, Joseph, as regards Italy." 

They was a nice fowl for dinner, 
roasted fine, and orobs of Chicked 
Gravy, rich and fragrant, fur tlit Em- 
prer to sop his bread in, and afterward 
he felt better, or else forgot Hatzfelt, 
and vvhen they g^t around to Princa 
H., one of Napoleon's best Generals 'd 
guv the Prince a true tip, and he'd lii 
out for som ewers on-known. 

I find Berlin is built up mo' solid 
than I cal'lated: The city, thet hed 
2,071.000 in 1910, covered 24^^ square 
miles: Paris covers 36, Oakland 38. 

"I 'How readin' consarnin Berlin's 
big sewage farm ruv me the notion 
Berlin was spread ©ut and scattered- 
like, but the farm was- located outside 
the city limits. 

Fact is, not many years sence, Ber- 



198 BLUK ^K¥K TO BERLIN 

lin was c'-'--^std bv municipal improTe- 
ment cranks as one t-f two model cit- 
ies. Glasgow was the other. Each 
muffeied some kind of frost, I think 
Glasgie got hers first. Mebby Berlin's 
rural neighbors disliked her sewage 
farriis. ^ 

In 19 10 Greater Berlin, with 1,376 
sq. mi., contained 3,974,300 people. 



I bed the honor to meet & Daylight 
Saver of Berlin who is also a Hurucr- 
ist by trade. These la$t ye kin iden- 
tif}^ by their weary eyes and cxtry 
serious conversation, never guilty ©f a 
jest, leastwa3s not of a printable jest. 
These he composes ^nd practices the 
sonnd of on the Linden between day- 
light and sun-up, and in the Tiergar- 
den to the birds before the human 
bipeds arriye. 

*' Now, that the Empire is gespielt 
oii«5^'' said he, '^we nia}^ have again a 
Cherniin Literature.^' 

''The ill wind blowin good agin fur 
soroebody. 

''Have ye not@d how wea't has been 
Germany in pure lilerature — by lha.t 
I mean or in tend Literature discon- 
nected with nor used as a tool or as a 
doormat by Commerce, Manufacturing 
or the World-Polittic— since 187 1? 



A GIANT'S GROWTH 199 

"I reckon physical power and war 
success tend to exalt Brute Force above 
Imagination. Think of Schiller or 
Lessing compelled to yield the side- 
walk to a captain of I\Iachine Guns, 
or a Freach spy iai Chermin uniform? 

Weimar, selected for the capital of 
the German Republic, more than a 
hundred years ago was the literary 
capiti^l of the world, where four world 
famous poets lived at one and the 
same time — Goethe, Schiller, Wieland 
and Herder. All four couldn't make 
a livin in that one town of 15,000 or 
so (about 1800. Weimar had 34,581 in 
1910) but for the friendship of the 
Grand Duke Charles Augustus (Karl 
August in the vernacular) who was a 
life member of the bunch hisself. It 
was 1776, first year of Himerican in- 
dependeuce^ wlien Charles Augustus 
invited Goethe to live in Weimar, 
and the great poet novelist accepted, 
and lived in Weimar for 56 years. He 
was prime minister part of the time 
and his three friends held other offi- 
cial jobs. Maecenas was the friend and. 
minister for twenty-three years of Au- 
gustus Emperor of Rome, the friend 
also of two eminent poets, Horace 
and Vergil. Goethe was the friend and 
minister of Charles Augustus of Sax« 



too BLUE BTE TO T]K^LIN 

Weimsr. Arniiistiis oTitHved his re- 
nowned iMssctiias, the most illustrious 
patron of literature, twenty-two 3'ears. 
Goethe outlived his patron four yetrs. 
What a coustitution Goethe had ! 

Schiller died 1805, Wielaud 1813, 
Herder 1803, Charles .Augustus 1828, 
Goethe 1832, age 83. Wielaud late in- 
herited. Herder, a preacher, lived in a 
Parsonage, back of hisWcimar church, 
from 1776 till his death. 

Theirs was an idyllic time, theirs the 
Augustan age — the Charles Augustan 
age, 'of Ghermin literature ! 

Here and there in Weimar statues of 
the live, poets and Grand Duke, recall 
those memorable friends. 

In 1792 Goethe soldiered in France; 
Karl August soldiered, too. also built 
a house for Goethe, in which he lived 
forty years. In 1885, Goethe's grand- 
son gave it to the State, the family 
run out, as do sich a many great. 

Herein Berlin are statues of Goethe, 
Sch!ller,Erederick H, Wilhelm I., Mar 
tinLuther, the Great Elector; Bismarck. 

''Soldiers and militarists," continued 
the Jester^ ''make wep^k liistorians." 

"Gibbon wan't much of a fightin man 
»or Hume, Macau lay or Greeley, or The 
German Struggle? for Liberty Bigelow. 

"Our only historians since 71 to equal 
Bigelow are Luedencamp and Tirpitz. 



Cousins Overseas 

When Kin^ Edward died in May, 1910, th« 
article Uncle Blair writ wound up in a quoting 
out of Whitticr: 

When nearer strand shall lean to strand 
Till meet beneath saluting flags 
The Eagle of our mountain crags. 

The Lion of our Mother Laud. 

It was read the first time then the rules was 
suspended and it passed unanimous at a meetin 

Near the rude bridge that arched the flood 

in April, 1875, jest ^ hunderd y«ar after the 
shootin* between the British regulars and tho 
Minute Men from Concord. Them lines show 
that Whittier wes mighty near reconciled by 
April 19, 1875. Whittier wan't at the doins, 
hisself, to hear his poem read, or to decipher 
his handwritin in a pinch if the reader stalled, 
Whittier was awfle bashful, and w«mld raytlitff 



102 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

take a lickin' than appear at any sicli function. 

One nihgt at the London home of the latter, 
John Bright bragged np Whittier to George W. 
Smalley, saying he regarded ''Snow-Bound/' as 
one of the great poemSj and asked Smalley if he 
conid repeat it. The Tribune correspondent 
flushed up, hesitated, and answered 

'^No—Not all of it." 

[Fur a factj he couldn's recall a line and a 
half ot it] Then Bright stood befo' the open 
ire, spread out his coat-tails, and recited the 
whole long poem. Yon kin believe it was no 
waste of time to hear John Bright reproduce 
poetry. Horace Greeley dedicated his History 
of the American Civil War 

To John Bright 

British Commoner and Christian Statesman 

Who was the Friend of My Country 

Because the Friend of Mankind* 



In 1S34 Daniel Webster said: 

"Our Fathers raised their flag against a 
power to which for purposes of foreign con- 
quest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of 
her glory, was not to be compared; whose 
morning drumbeat, following the sun and ac- 



BRITON AND FRANK 203 

companied by the hours, circles the globe with 
a coutiunous and nubroken strain o^ the mar- 
tial airs of England^ 

So you see, us present folks aint the only 
Himerican people who've forguv Britain. 

That same year, 1910, UncleBlair printed, in 
regards to Britain seudin' 250000 meu toSouth 
Afriky in the Boer war, that no other nation 
eould transport and supply 250,000 men 6,000 
miles from home. That was befo' Oakland and 
Hog Island hed took to buildin' to send acrost 
the Briny. 

Our soldiers that hev see King George are 
a'most unanimous fur him. His ways suits the 
average Himerican right well, a sort of man to 
man style, not coddlin' uor even suave as some. 
He sent around a handy and handsome little 
fac simily auto graft libretto or soovneer of wot 
he would say to each man if they was time. 

London is learnin to drink coffee at its meals 
—most Himericans is 'stonished to-fiod London 
folks that never in all their born days took 
coffee fur breakfast. Coffee-hous-s of Addison's 
time served coffee as a luxury, not 'P^^ssity^ 
at nie:htand theWits drunk it in evening dress, 
mo' like to hev Beer fur break fas' tjan coffee. 
Tlip One of the Bunqji least intoxicated would 
resd Ihe Spectator out loud. 

The main reason we don' drink mo' Tea i» 
the Ostracism of 1768 come to be hereditary. 



2C4 BLUB KYB TO BEKLIW 

Dr= Frsnkliti advised Boston to pay for the two 
sliip'load* of Tea thro wed into Boston Harbor 
in *73, That was called The Crime of '73. It 
didn^t make Franklin any mo' popular in his 
native city. 

Oxfori Uoiversity gave Gen. Pershing and 
Herbert Heover the degree of DoCL., same ez 
it conferred on Haig and Beatty. D. C. L. is a 
Doctor of Canon Law, in which examinations 
are easier than in the Civil Law. Pershing is 
TC-rsed in Cannon law with two n'Sj and Hoo~ 
v*r in Can law. 

I hear that Gen. Allenby is to be made a 
D.CL. of Cambridge, which is roomered to of 
lieen Allenby's alma mater, if you know wot 
that means. Sir Owen Seaman, of Punch, went 
to the same school. 

The first favorite of King George IH (and 
his pUtontc but ambitions mother) was MyLord 
Bute, a Scottish gentleman for whom great 
Lord Chatham ^as turned out as Premier. 

England is pretty well grsdironed by rail- 
ways, yet they are still back ^:ounlies (as one 
lays in America) a moiety of whose denizens 
travel not. much, and stiil remember the Hun- 
dred Years^ War of the Fourteenth and Fif- 
teenth centuries and somehow are admirers of 
the French esprit, but not m equal degree with 



BRITON AND FRANK 205 

King Edward and.otlier great Englishmen who 
have been broadened by travel and associa- 
tion with the au fait of the belle, brave nation. 
At the time of the Drive of March, rgiS, the 
Briiiish were driven west of the Somme. I at 
that time suspected that, mixed with the un- 
doubted, undaunted courage of the British 
soldiery was a certain balkiness that dulled the 
edge of their attack and became an obstacle to 
the carrying out of theArmyCommander's well- 
laid plans. Britain, since 1856, had been en- 
gaged in several far-flnng little wars. The 
Boer war, even, was nothing like this. Modern, 
warfare, as fought in Picardy, was toilsome in 
excess of its danger. Small wonder if Veteran 
Atkins was ready to inquire: 

** Why didm't 'is Majesty hire 
Hessiaus for this job ? 

Lord Bute was a fiue gentktman^ and an able 
minister; moreover, of limited popularity in 
.he City of London regiments. 

In 1919 three Generals were iu command of 
the British armies in three^ widely separated 
^'theatres of action.,^* not comitiogSir Douglas 
(now Earl) Haig — three of Scottish birth- 
Sir Archibald James Murray, Sir James Wolfe 
Murray, and Sir Charles Munro. 

[ James Wolfe Murray was born in Kent.] 

When Moses(commanding on the Sinai front) 



206 BLUE K¥E TO BERLIN 

sftys te Joshuway, in trumpet tones: 

"Speak to the Cliildren of Israel that 
they go forward! 

^'They kaiiit onderstand Scotch, Sir!" 

Sir James Wolfe Murray, named in honor of 
a famous ancestor, the eaptor of Quebec, died 
in October, 19 19. He and Sir Archibald Mur- 
ray, wb.0 commanded in Egypt^, 1915-17, were 

Lieiitenaiit Generals. 

It may be jealous}^ of French or Scotsman 
detracted somewhat from Haig's effeetivenesSj 
or a growVWhere are the millon Americans ?'* 
This last German drive was a forlorn hope to 
forestall Americpn reinforcements. 

Haig, in 'iy and eaily '18, was in a situation 
that recalls Grai^t before Petersburg, Grant 
had awarded to JhermAu and Sheridan the 
spectacular work, and Sherman entered Atlanta, 
Sheridan swept the Vallevv and , Grant fought 
out h's weary battle slowly. He depended upon 
memory of Donelson and Vick.-bur^^ to hold the 
home folks for Grant, and t re the cud came 
he had needed all. 

In no less than En, eland ''erscl, Scotland 
had devoted blood and m^rd- earned pence to 
tli€ Cause, proportioned to her nuniber, men 
as freely as General--o S'leh truth was recog- 
nized in England and thro-igl-o.u tne Enipirc. 
The honors and re wiuxis given ;oEarl Haig 



BRITON OR FRANK 207 

evoked no carper. The son of Asquith lost had 
as a counterpart the con of Rosebery who fell 
befcite Jfru^alem, or Redmond's brother, dead 
among Irish heroe^;, defender of Calais. 

Fe.ver leaders were lost than in the U. S. A. 
Wair for Union, pro rat«, whose combats were 
portrayed and losses reported mo' fully, 

Wai Losses were reported to October, 191S: 

Gr. Brtn— Killed Wounded 

Men^ — - 620.828 Ij939,47S 

Officers— 37,876 92,664 



658,704 3,032,142 

Canada — 

Men— 60,383 

Officers — 1,842 ~Tot*l Casualties 220,182 

An earlier report gayi the Canadian casualties 
up to II days from capture of Mons totakd 2ir- 
358— killed, 34,877; died of wounds and diseast 
15,457; missing, 8,245; wounded,i52,779. 

Cologne Gazette' estimated German war dead 
to Oct. 25, I9i8,at 3,000,000; total casualties 6,- 
086,769, of waica the following had: 



Dead 
Prussia 1,262,060 


Wounded 

2,882,171 . 


Missing 
616,139 


Bavaria 150,958 


363,^23 


72,TIS 


Saxony 108,017 
Wurtmbrg 64,507 
Navy 25,862 


252,027 

157.654 
25,608 


51.7^7 

i6.89« 

15,679 



French casualties include i.4€0,ooo dead. 



208 BLUE EYB TO BERLIN 

A statement issued in October, 1919, gives a 
British loss in gross tonnage of sea-going 
Tesiels, from submarines, etc. 

Tonnage destroyed by Enemy, 9,031,828 

Tons Net Loss to Britain 3,443,012 

The difference, more than five and a half million 

tons had been replaeed by "building, buying 

seizing." 

In December,i9i8, World almanac stated the 
public debt of the following nations: 

Britain $3 3, 000,000,000 France $26,000,000,000 
Astralia 1,212,000,000 Italy 10,328,000,000 
Canada 1,172,000,000 Russia 35,383,000,000 
^) .Zealand 611,000,000 U.S.A. 19,000,000,000 

At about the same date,*a British delegate 
to Paris peace conf«rence, estimatedthe total 
public debt of Britain at $34,000,000,000. 

Great sacrifices in aid of Britain were made 
by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other 
colonies, and evidenced how successful is the 
Colonial policy of Britain's later time. After 
United States entered the war, Canada seemtd 
to abate, as unnecessary, something of effort. 

Britain seems to have given United States a 
fair opening to the world's carryu>g trade, but 
Americans seem to prefer larger profits off one 
another. Reciprocating, they say to Britain: 
"Do your worst in Palestine^ for all me ! ^* 



Peace 

On tilt Friday or Saturday night preceding 
the general election of 1916, Uncle Blair and I 
w«nt to Oakland Auditoryium to htar Francis 
J. Heney urge the re-election of President Wil- 
aon. The great hall, with seats for 11,000, liad 
been crowded, two weeks earlier, by voter?« in- 
tent to hear Mr. Charles E. Hughes; that was 
again replete with people assembled to listen to 
Woodrow Wilson himself, in September, 1919. 
It was not opened for Mr, Heney. who had a 
numerous audience in the smaller hall. On 
every chair had been depoiited a half dozen 
pieces of **campaign literature." The title of 
one and the burden of all was: 

" He Kept Us Out of War." 

Likely not one person present had a suspicion 

that within six months this Peace President 

wonld be urging upon Congriess a Declaration 

f War with Germany. This campaign Cry 

on many votes, notably of women in Suffrage 



110 ' BLTTS EYE TO BEPXI-M 

States. It is believed, however, that Hiighei^ 
liad be been chosen President, would have been 
«ven more prompt to join the Allies. 

Certain scary stories printed in American 
newspapers, of German plans to invade the 
Uiited States throngh Mexico, clc, which ap- 
peared in 1916, were too absurd to merit such 
publication. Never since its formation had th« 
ImperialGerman power been sufiiicent to inflict 
injury on the United States in the latter's 
home Continent. 



Germany and the United States, conjoined, 
mifhthave made a respectable showing against 
the naval power of Biitain. 

But there is no likelihood that they united 
could have won a conclusive Tictory. When, 
however, the United States joined Britain and 
France and Italy with forty battleships, 303 
chasers, 32 cruisers, 68 submarines, 125 de- 
stroyers, 1900 ships in all, against 250 at the 
oursct of the war, and our three millions of 
soldiers, Germany might with easy grace throw 
up the sponge in the presence cf force majeur. 
It wfts possibly the plan of President W'lson 
and the American leaders to interpose, if at all, 
with a force so strong as to show Germany the ■ 
uselessness of further bloodshed. It is- likely 
the German high command were so convinced' 
speedily, as was the Kniser. More powerful, 
koweverj than the army chiefs or the people at 



THE PEACE 111 

home, were the rank and file of the German 
army. Thcv were in possession of all save a 
few square miles of Belgium and of an area 
of Northern Fraace large as several Belgiums^ 
and had been for almost four years; that Army 
had not yet been defeated in a single important 
battle. Mackensen had swept Roumania in a 
wonderful campaign, and Austrian troops were 
still inside the old boundaries of Italy. 
On the surface the Germans were conquering. 
The relentltss system organized by Mr. Lloyd 
George, Lord Devon port, Lord Rhondda, and 
Mr. Hoover, had almost complet<-jy taken th* 
ground from under all the armies of the so- 
called Central Powers. To convince these ar- 
mies and terminate the contest, more than a 
allow of force was necessary, and thousands of 
American lives had to be sacrificed. 

On Nov. 26, 191 8, a statement was 

issued^'of American losses, as follows: 

Killed in Action - 2LS363 

Died of Wounds 12,101 

Died of Disease 16,032 

" other causes 1,980 

Wounded - 189,155 

Miss'g in Action' 14,290 

The war of 18 12 had cost United 

States about thirteen million dellar.Sj 

amd the Government had infinite diffi- 

culty raising that much money. The 

civil war 1861-5 ^^^^ nearly three and 

a half billion*. W^heu America went 

hersalf into the war of 1914-19, her 



112 BLUB EYE TO BERLIN 

statesmen had apparently no thought 
of a possible bottom iu her pocket. 
** Git a plenty while you're gittin ! " 
**A National Debt is a National Bless- 
ing." ^'It all depends on who gets'the 
interest." "Give our soldiers the best." 

Not many years before, Charles A. 
Dana and the great editors denounced 
a Sillion-DoUar Congress, the first of 
whom the appropriations for two years 
had reached $1,000,000,000, The con- 
gress elected in 1916 authorized taxa- 
tion never before approached in Amer- 
ica, raised by loans more than twenty- 
five billions, loaned nine billions to 
theAllies and raised the National total 
debt from slightly more than a billion 
in 1916 to thirty billions in 1918. 

U. S. A. Exports to June 30: 
To~- 1 915 19 1 4 

England $835,5^5^79 $55^,^47,390 
Scotland 53,612,156 33,95o,947 

UnitedK. 911792,454 - — — — 

Germany 28,863,354 341,794,276 
France 369,397ii7o 159,818,924 
Italy 184,819,683 74,233,678 

Netherlds 143,067,019 11^,215,673 
Austria=H'y 1,240,167 22,718,258 

An unprecedented increase in the 
cost of food and commodities began in 
the autumn of 1916, due presumably 
to "Lloyd-George" measures. Flour 
and many other staples, despite war 



THE PEACE 813 

buying, were cheaper in 1915 than in 
1913. Under an agree'neiit with Great 
Britain, in I918, the United States in 
1918 and '19 maintained the price of 
wheat at $2.26, minimum— the first 
wheat "corner" that ever won out in 
America— when Australia wheat sold 
for a dollar. In 1916, Lloyd -Georgt 
noted possibly the $300,000,000 1915 in- 
crease {50 per cent) in our exports to 
Britain, and soon after asked British 
holders oCAmerican railway securities 
to deposit them with Government; this 
many were at first loth to do, bonds of 
this class beirg relied on for iucorae; in 
the end all came in, the interest going 
still to the owners. These were of vast 
amount, and fear of them being put in 
mass on the market caused capital to 
favor our entry into the war. Under a 
War Power decision of our Supreme 
Court, the President took over all the 
American railways. Our government 
paid out more than the excess of ex- 
ports, but most was spent at home; all 
our war bonds are hcld-^n America. 

The increase in cost of food was es- 
timated at 65 per cent, clothing 90. 
^ The Federal Reserve banking system 
in operation before the War, had given 
a more flexible currency and probably 
afforded opportunity to iucreajre cost. 
At no time was there danger of sus^ 



214 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

pension of specie pavments, as in the 
civil war, despite inflation. New York 
reserve banks Dec.6'i9,had capital$fio- 
350,000; profits, $402,527,900; deposits 
f4,228,o37,ooo;loaDs, $4,963,349,000; U. 
S. Fed. reserve crculation $2,881, 357,000. 
Ill-judged,cru'el sinking of Lusitania 
gave us no fair pre'ext to fight.Britain 
never asked any other nation to pro- 
tect passengers under licr flag. She 
wa,s light in the Trent case. The deck 
of a British ship is British territory. 

The powers of the Americau Presi- 
dent include no fictions. No King or 
other Executive Vv'ieMs so much actual 
power. A British Chancellor of Ex- 
cktcquer represents the House of 
Commons' majority, not the nominal 
Executive. If he iubmits a budget of 
which a Cabinet disapproves, he drops 
out. If the Hous€ disapproves, the 
whole Cabinet resign. If we adopt a 
budget system ,^lhe man at its head 
must be a member of the lower House 
of Congress. A President's appointee 
in such a plaee would be a bureaucrat 
powerless. As we said of a propo£?;d 
Tariff Commi'^sion, the Hou*e will not 
give xip control of revenue. Work of 
1883 Tariff Couimissioii ail had to be 
done over again by Congress. 

Nor will the Senate ^ive up treaty 
making. A President alone may carry 



THE PEACE 215 

on a war, but he cannot make a treaty 
of peace without the Senate. Treaties 
are the law of the land, enacted by the 
least numerous, less popular house, a 
look toward oligarchy, under rule of 
parties not worth noting. The party 
whip lashes President and Senator. 
In the end, public opinion rules. It is 
hindered more by our Constitution, is 
in effect more tardily than Britain^s. 
July lO the President just from Paris 
presented the Treaty to Ithe Senate. 
An amendment, restoring Shantung to 
China was defeated 55 to38;Johnson*s 
rejectinf the article givingBritain an^ 
her Colonies 6 votes in the proposed 
League, failed, 38 to 40; also Gore's 
requiring a declaration of war to be 
submitted to popular vote; 67 to 16. 
Foreign Relations Committee had the 
previous day adopted a Preamble and 
Ten Reservations to amend theTreaty 
Nov. 13 Senate passed reserve of Art. 
X, objected to as apt to entangle us. 

2. United .States declines to assume 
under Art.X or any other article, any 
obligation to preserve tlit territorial 
integrity or independence of any other 
country, or to interfere in controver- 
sies between nations, whether members 
of the League or not. * * 
Adopted 46 to 33. 

3. Reserves freedom of actioti upon 



.10 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

home, and boundary qiiestions;59 to 36. 
Reserve complete jurisdiction of the 
Monroe doctrine to tj. S. 55 to 33. 

Vv^ithholdin^ assent to clause under 
whichjapan keeps Shantung: 53 to 41. 
Am. appointees to staff of League to 
be approved by Senate. 53 to 40. 

German trade of U.S. to be regulated 
by Cong ress^notHeparaiionsCom. 54-40 
Armaments limitation not to apply to 
U.S. threatened with invasion. 56 t039 
Congress to appropriate U. S. share 
of League expenses. 56 to 39. 
Reserves freedom of intercourse with 
nationals of covenant-breaking State* 
not living in their own country. 53-41. 
No article shall contravene rights 
®f American citizens. 51 to 41. 

Nov. 26, Treaty, with reservations^ 
failed in the Senate, 41 to 5i. Pream- 
ble (by Senate) required acceptance by 
three of four chief treating powers.* 
Appropriations for year ending Juna 
30/20, $5, 629486, 439.42. Estimates for 
'21, $4, 186,196,358. But a deficit for *20 
of $2,890,000,000 will make the reve- 
nue required' for '20-21 seven billions. 
Lloyd-George, dissolving the Long 
Parliament in the psychic moment of 
victory, got 331 majority. Coalitions 
are always weak. Like Missouri mules 
they have no pride of ancestry(a great 
point with old Tory), no ^'principles.'^ 



THE PEACE 217 

Essentia] ccinponeiits are likely to fly 
the track in perilous crises. M'nisters 
find post bellum troubles worst. Riots 
and Chartism deglamortd Waterloo. 

Liberals accidentally got the worst 
of it; they had a fine majority 1905-14; 
in old days 1 cries rather favored Ger- 
many, Liberals Russia. 

Exportito 1917 iQis 

UnitedKingd'mj2.047,545,843 > 1,994, 894, 260 

Prance 1.011528.095 890.481,515 

Italy 360,529,625 477,530.202 

Russia 423,2«4.663 116.705.346 

Exports from U. S. 1918 1917 

Brefidstuffs J633,309,485 ^588,683.454 

Meat & Dairy Prd 679.848,942 403,192,279 

Cotton 665.021,655 548.074,690 

^^^^ 75.306,692 72,476.204 

2*^* 105,881,233 88.844,401 

Wheat 80 802,842 298,178.795 

^^^^r 244.861,440 93,198.174 

Beef, canned 30.051,507 16,946,630 

^ i^i-esh 67.386,359 26, ^77,271 

Total exp.ft imp. 8,874,000,000 8,949.000,000 

The excess of exports over imports, 
the balance of trade that enabled us to 
maintain specie payments as against 
1S62-78, was $3,63 1,000,000 in ^17, and 
$2,982,000,000 in 1918. 

9 



In passin, I note the Conferens. put 
Voelsnear-Innsbruck and Vocls-ncar- 



318 BLUE EYK TO BERLIN 

Botzen in separate nations. This will 
please the P( stoffice heads. 

In several Capitals is a feelin weVe 
not done our sheer, et we hev paid out 
mo' in two years thau some in five. I 
am willin, now that Roosevelt's gone, 
to raise a army of old franc tiieurs, a 
Flyin Colyum of Maine to Californy 
veterans, to settle now and then the 
hash of Fich of the New Republics as 
gits obstreperous, and niebby organiz 
a few new ones here and there. I am 
skeert of U.S.A. as sich ondertakin 
the job, as some allied big bugfs ask. 

I see in a pay- purr thet purrs fur 
pay per'aps, our Aviater service asked 
fifteen bilivons of next year's budget— 
a error on purpose to injure the serv- 
ice. 1 favor raisin the service to the highest 
p'nt of the Zenith; but insist that in-futur«N. 
y, to S. F. races be run ir? relays Too many 
avvytors got iilJed that last trip that the Sky 
Pilot May card from Syracuse won Long' 
before a vy» tin was drem]>t of they called the 
preachers Sky Pilots. 

Crossin' the Atlantic is a strange, 
hard, onfamiliar stnnt, but croFsiji the 
Mississippi valley is worser. Oceans is. 
known to be climate equalizers, but a 
avvytor in one day is probble to have 
eighteen sorts ot climate in Oio alone. 
Several coiuptters reported a stratum 
of rough air aboveChicago so pungent 
they near fainted and fell out. If tkey 



THE PEACE 2i<^ 

'd put aC jicago man in atCrestline lie 
M flown over the Peraity Meiropolis 
and not knowed they was a stock y'ds 
less than a thousand miles off. 

Near the Continental watershed, ou 
the fur west rim of the big, oii-sartin 
pork-producer Valley, is where most 
g( t killed, over ground so level ez to 
make even the preacher believe he was 
sailin down the Mohawk, Fact is, the 
ground under the plane has a sworn 
elevation of mo' than ten thousand 
foot. Right soon a hill about 400 foot 
high confronts him. When he tries 
to riz over it he finds the dauged plane 
has alredy riz to its limit, and kaint 
go no higher. Next thing we know 
he's at the pearly Gates, bonin'Sant 
Peter to pass him in on 13 em rule. 

Why, knowin' railroadin' good as 
\ve do now, after eighty-odd year, the 
Super, when he puts on a new Flyer 
dfesn't pick out an engineer that has 
never been over the Division, but one 
rather who kin tell by the feel of any 
bridge 'bout when the road will go 
into the hands of a Receiver if the 
Government don't commandeer it. 

I used to know an engineer on the 
Katy who could tell within five second 
of the time by the weather cock on 
PikeAnderson's barn. He kerried a 



120 BLUE EYB TO BERLIN 

good watch to comply with the rules, 
but the boys said he never looked at it 
when on duty. 

I got into a j*int debate with a En- 
glish D. S. O. whether people of a 
monarchy or republic has most so- 
called Byzantinism or respect for au- 
thority. I p'inted out to him that his 
ken try raised most of its troops by 
volunteerin, but we hadn't time, and 
drafted. Folks as didn't spose U.S.A., 
*d ever fight again, found on notice of 
few days they'd have to go to Europe 
to war, not knowin or keerin' wot was 
it about. If a draft had come at first 

and that sudden, in England I 

None our men made trouble. Some 
cussed under their but went like men. 
Widely imformed as I am, when-in 'i6 
I see a paper in Greece urge U.S.A. to 
intervene, I says: "Does thatLevauter 
pyrite fancy U.S will ever butt in on 
Europe, speshil on sich a nasty fight?' 
Inside a year we were in on hoth feet 
Wot made Lardner's**hit the spot" 
was a King is mo' anxious to pleast 
the people than a republic's burocrat, 
who is one of the people hisself, and 
don't keer if ye kaint find the way in 
but he wants you to know the way out 
A Briton wood of wrote the Spectator: 
*W'y aint they no sign "Entrance" as 



THE PEACE 221 

well as "Sortie" on that ticket-office?^' 
A absolute monarch everybody kicks. 
I mean to buy some lots in Beirut, 
then build a Short Line to Bagdad via 
Damascus, beat Constantnople all to 
pieces on through business. They's a 
small desert between Damascus and 
Bagdad that won't originate much 
bizness till we get water o^ it, mebby 
from **the Abana and Pharpar, rivers 
of Damascus." Damascus is a big 
shipper. Damascus, O., is a smalt 
place, but Damascus Staiiott almost a 
mile northeast, is smaller. Damascus 
refused a bonus to the P.F.W.&C. in 
(about) 1855 so they built the road a 
mile off, to do the town up. [Company 
claimed Damascus was too near Heav- 
en. ] When the Pennsylvany took over 
the line, the big company stood by th* 
old. Blair lived for seven years four 
mile south of Damascii5, but was never 
in Damascus in hisjlifeu In a maga- 
«ine article in 1918 I said: 

"Ouce a year. Uncle Blait passed 
thro' Damascus Station on root to N. 
Benton, Mahoning county, via Berlin 
(Center.); he was in Damascus but oust 
in his lie. His uncle had took Blair to 
Hicksite Quaker yearly meeting at Sa- 
lem, and tnot it only fair to give the 
©rthodox (Wilbur) yearly meeting at 



m BLUE EYE TO BERLIM 

Damascus a chance at the Prodigy.?* 
I find the meeting house is forty rod 
east of town. A mile north of "^Blair 
the road plunges down to the Maho. 
ning, then right up agin in two hills 
so steep it minds you of them iieerd 
the upper O'io. No one 'd drive a ker- 
ridge that road. One day two cousins 
visited Blair and he walked wi'tti them 
that far homeward. They advised hini 
not to go down the hill; the other time 
he and some boys went down one hillj 
but the up-hill looked too steep, so they 
walked down the Mahoning past Gal- 
braith's dam and saw-mill. 

In 1910 I writ that whenVVilhelm II 
come on in '88 folks looked fur him to 
be '^the deesturber of Europe,'* but 
he'd done gone and been twenty year 
without a war or even a battle. 

The ex-Kizer read Plutarch at a too, 
early age. The Happy Warrior is old 
Franz Joseph. He did mo' to start the 
War, but died Dec.'i6, in full tide of 
victrY, after a reign of 69 years of 
trouble fur his wife and relations and 
a purty good time fur hisself. It was 
storniiu' revolution when he come on 
in '48, but he won out; lucky. Stems 
like Vienna is woise off than Berlin, 

Congress of Vienna (1815) '11 sneak 
out: of history comparative ^unimport-^ 
^nt. Contrast cynic Metternich, coum 



THE PEACE 223 

tin onh^ Kings, and Wilson, lookin^ 
put for every two-spot. 

British hev been run u in a car- ferry 
to France fur nionths, bigger 'n them 
at Kalama or Benicia, but papers jest 
recei.t printed its picture. A fine job, 
haulin ^mniynition ihat-away, airy- 
planes droppin bums. A tunnel to Ca- 
lais 'd been built ni?ny year sence but 
fur Britains trust in Hearts of Oak. A 
Corptals gard M hold the other end of 
the tunnel agin most of Europe, with 
Britain ccmuiandin the sea, releasin 
half the Grand Fleet for attack. 

Blair calls my eye to anachronism 
— I made Napoleon quote Cincinnatus 
of theWest some nineteen year before 
Byron wrote ii: that's like me — like 
Napoleon, too. 

The old lady formerly called State 
Rights may justly paraphrase King 
Pyrrhus (of Fiume): 

One more Democratic victory 
and I am Ruined 
If I aint Ruined already. On the Day 
of Judgment the Distriet Attorney, 
Simon Peter, may examine not under 
four Democratic Presidents: 

''Thomas Jeffeiscn, \ou said that 
government is best that govrns least? 

How about the War Power? You 
insisted the Constitution must be 
strictly construed? *'I did. 



^^4 BLUE EYE TO BERLIN 

**Yet 50U stretched it awful to let in 
a territory of imperial destiny 

Andrew Jackson, you threatened to 
hang S.Carolina State Rights leaders. 

Grover Cleveland, I have here a let- 
ter from Gov.Altgeld, denouncing you 
for trampling on the rights of hisStatc. 

**Keep it— I don*t want it. 

A middle-«izesoldier in light blue p- 
p-pants, dark-blue dress coat, shoulder 
straps, took the stand: 

*• What's your name, my boy? 
"McKinley. 

**Your (so called)Christian name? 

^William. 

Rank and regiment? 

Major, Twenty-third Ohio. 
A handsome youth in kaki c«mes up. 

Saint Peter — Wot Regiment? 
"i59ih, A.E.F. 

Tkc old lady bust into sobs. OWood- 
row, the worst biff of all comes from 
thee. Poor boy has no home State I 

The boy, with dignity^I went from 
California; I fought for America. 

TeUgram.MarchesediMirandola to Sallie Yates: 

Married,Christmas,i9i9,Charlotte Au- 
gust aHartman and ChevalierMcCann. 
I asked Ben: Aint you skeert to marry 
with I foot in the grave?'* "In Sondrio 
i thot I had both feet in thegiaveand 
my haid' most ready tobekivvered up. 



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